Table 1.

Distribution of Assembly Products by SEC.

Substrate	% peak area		% VP1		<RNA/capsid>
	capsid	pentamer	capsid	pentamer
300 nt RNA	85.5%	14.5%	77%	23%	1.30
500 nt RNA	96.1%	3.9%	94%	6.2%	1.07
600 nt RNA	96.1%	3.9%	94%	6.2%	1.07
800 nt RNA	96.5%	3.5%	94%	5.6%	1.06
600 mer PSS	1	0	100%	0	1

Peak areas were calculated from the chromatographs in figure 1. The total absorbance of the capsid peak includes RNA absorbance with an estimated extinction coefficient of 4000 M⁻¹ cm⁻¹ per nucleotide ⁵³. PSS has negligible absorbance at 280 nm. Assuming all substrate was in the capsid peak, we calculated the fraction of VP1 in the free pentamer and capsid peaks.