Genes VI, VII, and IX of phage M13 code for minor capsid proteins of the virion.

The minor capsid proteins C and D from phage M13 have been characterized by differential amino acid labeling and amino-terminal sequence analysis. We demonstrate that D protein (Mr 12,260) is the product of gene VI, whereas the C component is composed of the products of both gene VII (Mr 3580) and gene IX (Mr 3650). Our data further show that the proteins of genes VI, VII, and IX are not subject to proteolytic processing but are packaged into mature virions as their primary translational products. On the basis of incorporation of specific amino acids, the copy numbers of these proteins in M13 virions could be estimated relative to the number of A protein molecules. The M13 phage contains on the average 5 molecules of A protein, 5 molecules of VI protein and 3-4 molecules of both VII protein and IX protein. These copy numbers remained unchanged in M13 recombinant phages of up to two times the length of wild-type phages, a fact that indicates that these minor capsid proteins are located at either one or both ends of the phage filament.