Electrochemical properties of the glycoprotein of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) grown in Rous sarcoma virus (RSV)-transformed cells was compared with that of its counterpart grown in nontransformed cells. In DEAE-Sephadex column chromatography, the glycoproteins of VSV derived from transformed cells appeared more heterogeneous and had a tendency to elute with higher concentrations of NaCI than those from nontransformed cells. In isoelectric focussing, the glycoproteins of VSVs derived from transformed and nontransformed cells appeared as multiple components differing in the isoelectric point, and the glycoproteins from virus from transformed cells had isoelectric points that were more acidic than their counterparts from nontransformed cells. These results show that the glycoprotein of VSV consists of populations of molecules differing in charge and their isoelectric points were shifted to the acidic side by host cell transformation.Viral transformation of cells accompanies functional, biochemical, and morphological changes in the cell membrane. The differences have been also observed in the carbohydrates attached to lipids (3,8,22) and to proteins (25) in the membranes of normal and malignant cells. Enveloped RNA viruses mature at the cell surface and are coated with host cell membrane modified by viral infection. Expectation that viral envelopes are modified by host cell transformation and reflect some properties of transformed cell membrane was experimentally supported by studies on avian oncovirus (12, 14, IS), murine oncovirus (7), and VSV (IS, 16). Thus, as a model to study molecular changes accompanied by malignant transformation, the viral envelope seems to be a preferable material. The glycopeptides of VSV have been shown to be altered in polyoma virus-transformed hamster cells (16). The present study investigated whether cell transformation results in an alteration of electrochemical properties of the envelope glycoprotein of VSV, one of the most productive and well characterized enveloped RNA viruses.