FIG. 4.

Effects of pH on capsid stability are apparent at pH 2 and pH 14. Portions (20 μg) of E. coli-expressed capsid preparations were incubated in TBS buffers at various pH’s for 30 min at 37°C before electrophoresis in a 1% agarose gel. The upper panels show the results of EtBr (left panel) and Coomassie blue (right panel) staining of the wild-type capsid preparations containing full-length (HBcAg1-183) or truncated (HBcAg1-149) core proteins. The results of the pH challenges with the mutant I97L capsids are shown in the lower panels.