Complete uncoating of the 5' leader sequence of tobacco mosaic virus RNA occurs rapidly and is required to initiate cotranslational virus disassembly in vitro.

Destabilizing events required for subsequent cotranslational disassembly of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) particles in vitro were studied. Brief treatment of U-32P-labelled TMV (strain vulgare or U2) with 1% SDS exposed only 2.5% of the RNA (160 5' nucleotides) in a susceptible subpopulation of virions.