Abstract
Experiments are presented in which the plaque assay technique was used to study the intracellular appearance and release of Western equine encephalomyelitis virus in suspensions of infected chick embryo fibroblasts. No intracellular virus could be found during the 1st hour after adsorption in spite of the fact that more than 1014 cells per ml. proved to be infected. This is taken to indicate that the infecting particle loses its infectivity upon entering a susceptible cell. The first progeny virus was detectable in the cells between 1 and 2 hours after infection, and it increased in amount exponentially during the following 3 hours. The released virus as measured in the supernatant fluid increased at the same rate as the intracellular virus but exceeded it in amount by a factor of about twenty at all times during the period of exponential increase. More than 100 particles were spontaneously released from each cell, by the end of the period of exponential increase, yet the maximum number of intracellular infective particles at any instant during this period was never more than an average of from 4 to 10 per cell. Calculations based on these findings indicate that, on the average, a virus particle is released from the cell within 1 minute after it gains the property of infectiousness.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (418.5 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- CAIRNS H. J., MASON P. J. Production of influenza A virus in the cells of the allantois. J Immunol. 1953 Jul;71(1):38–40. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- DULBECCO R., VOGT M. One-step growth curve of Western equine encephalomyelitis virus on chicken embryo cells grown in vitro and analysis of virus yields from single cells. J Exp Med. 1954 Feb;99(2):183–199. doi: 10.1084/jem.99.2.183. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- HENLE W. Developmental cycles in animal viruses. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol. 1953;18:35–44. doi: 10.1101/sqb.1953.018.01.009. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]