The importance of relating structure of nucleic acids to their function is emphasized by the clear implication of nucleic acids in many disease processes (cancer, influenza, encephalitis, etc.). Our objective is to determine the base sequences of virus nucleic acid in order to understand its function in a biological system. We are concentrating our main efforts on the use of polar, step-wise stripping of coat protein from TMV for the sequence analysis of the exposed TMV RNA. The methods to be used include: 1) The exposure of short lengths of TMV RNA and the sequence analysis of the exposed ends by standard fingerprint methods. 2) The location of specific sequences, including unique sequences, in the RNA exposed by partial stripping of TMV. This should provide an overall map of markers to correlate with the segments analyzed in 1), above. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Castora, F. J. and Mandeles, S. (1976) Abstract Fed. Proc. 35, 1386. "Sequences of Unique Oligonucleotides from RNase T1 Treated TMV RNA."