The nucleic acids of some insect viruses.

Purine and pyrimidine bases have been estimated from the desoxyribonucleic acids of eleven insect viruses. Their proportions vary in the different species in a balanced way so that the molar ratios adenine:thymine and guanine:cytosine are constant and close to unity, whereas adenine + thymine:guanine + cytosine ranges from 0.71 to 1.87. This ratio is identical for some biologically dissimilar viruses, and no general parallelism is evident between DNA composition and biological relationship. Two different viruses from one host have distinct DNA's.