Semliki Forest virus was grown in BHK-21 cells and labelled in vivo with radioactive monosaccharides. The virus was disrupted with sodium dodecyl sulphate and the polypeptides were hydrolyzed with pronase. A mixture of type A glycopeptides (for nomenclature, see Johnson and Clamp (1971) Biochem. J. 123, 739-745) of the membrane glycoproteins E1 and E3 was isolated by gel filtration and subjected to sequential degradation with exo-glycosidases. The reduction in the apparent molecular weight and the cleavage of radioactive monosaccharides were monitored with gel filtration. The results suggest that the type A oligosaccharides have similar average structures and contain at the non-reducing terminus 3.4 mol of alpha-D-sialic acid and 0.7 mol of alpha-L-focose, folloled by 3.1 mol of beta-D-galactose, 4.2 mol of N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosamine, 0.7-1.5 mol of alpha-D-mannose, 0.5 mol of beta-D-mannose and 0.6-2.2 mol of N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosamine attached to 1.0 mol of N-acetylglucosamine resistant to N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase. This innermost monosaccharide unit, therefore, appears to be attached to the peptide. The peptides attached to this N-acetyl-glucosamine had an apparent molecular weight of 720+/-100. We propose the following average structure, compatible with most of our data, for the type A glycopeptides of Semliki Forest virus:.