Intracellular Interactions of Polioviruses: Interference and Multiplicity Reactivation

Citation

Drake, John Walter (1958) Intracellular Interactions of Polioviruses: Interference and Multiplicity Reactivation. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/DRQ8-QH50. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-10072004-134911

Abstract

This study concerns interactions among polioviruses infecting the same cell, and can be divided into three parts. The first part consists of the detailed study of certain conditions of infection of HeLa cells by poliovirus. The second is concerned with the interfering activity of virus, either live or inactivated, with the multiplication of superinfecting live virus, either homotypic or heterotypic. It was found that live virus interferes with heterologous virus (homologous not tested), while UV-killed virus lacks interfering ability. It was also found that the virus released from cells infected by two heterotypic polioviruses, when interference does not occur, contains particles which are neutralized by both specific antisera. This phenomenon may be the result of a "phenotypic mixing" mechanism similar to that observed with phages. The third part of the study deals with multiplicity reactivation among homotypic polioviruses inactivated by UV irradiation. When killed viruses are adsorbed to cells at multiplicities greater than one, more cells release live virus than can be accounted for on the basis of the input of UV-surviving viruses. This multiplicity reactivation is a function of the UV'd particles, not of non-viral agents in the lysate, heat-killed viruses, originally uninfectious particles, nor anomalies in adsorption. The fraction of cells releasing virus increases with multiplicities up to 40-80, when saturation appears to set in. At high doses the fraction of yielders decreases with the UV dose to the virus at a rate equal to that at which the virus itself is killed. The parameter n, representing the number of segments within a virus which can interact with segments from other particles, is calculated, and its significance is discussed.

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