Morphological changes in the flexuous potato viruses upon decoration in immunosorbent electron microscopy

Effect of titer and pH of decorating antiserum, and the virus-source host species on the virion morphology upon decoration of potato viruses X, S and Y was studied. There was good decoration without any apparent adverse effect in the case of PVX and PVS with exception of pH 6.0 and antiserum titer 1:0.5, which caused decoration of only a small proportion of the virions. On the other hand, the PVYo virion morphology showed only slight to extensive disorganization depending on the pH and titer of the antiserum and the virus-source host species. Virion structure was, however, preserved when either PVYo (o strain) and its antiserum were made to react in liquid phase, or virions were fixed with 3% glutaraldehyde before decoration.