PROPAGATION OF HERPES SIMPLEX VIRUS IN TISSUE CULTURES OF RABBIT KIDNEY

Abstract

The tissue culture technique described by Morann and Melnick (1953) was adopted for growing herpes simplex virus in rabbit kidney cultured cells. Rabbit kidney tissue provided a luxuriant cellular proliferation in plasma-free stationary tubes. Propagation of the virus was accomplished and the virus growth curve was found to be similar to that reported by other workers who used different tissue material. The histo-logical changes of the infected cells were easily observed when the culture was examined under a microscope without any fixation or staining. The cell degeneration was reflected mainly as an increase in refractiveness and rounding of the cells which might form multinucleated giant cells. This degeneration ended in a total lysis of the cultured cell sheets and the cells themselves. The degeneration was accordingly used as a criterion to determine the end-points when the cultured cells were used in the titration of the virus and in serum neutralization tests. A comparative study of this test with the intracerebral inoculation of young mice, done at the same time, revealed that the tissue culture method as used in this work is as reliable as the young mouse inoculation method.