780 TEMPERATURE SENSITIVITY OF SUBACUTE SCLEROSING PANENCEPHALITIS (SSPE) VIRUS AND PERSISTENT INFECTION

Abstract

Temperature sensitive (ts) mutant viruses are those which grow normally at a lower (permissive) temperature but less well at a higher (restrictive) temperature. Several investigators have suggested that is mutants play a role in the initiation and maintenance of persistent viral infection (PVI). Such mutants have been shown to be involved in the PVI of cultured animal cells in vitro, particularly in the case of veterinary viruses. It was therefore decided to determine whether a virus strain known to have caused PVI and degenerative brain disease in man did, in fact, have is properties and whether these properties could be related to the capacity of the strain to cause PVI of cultured human cells in vitro. The Halle strain of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) virus was found to contain a high proportion of clones that were ts. A wild-type strain of the closely related measles virus contained no such clones. HEp-2 cells were infected with both strains of virus at permissive temperature (32°C) and restrictive temperature (39°C). The SSPE virus was able to establish PVI at restrictive temperature but not at permissive temperature. The persistently infected cells exhibited virus-specific antigen and intermittently shed infectious virus into the overlay medium but could be passed and were not destroyed. The measles virus, which lacked is clones, could not establish PVI at either temperature.

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