THE ENTRY AND DISTRIBUTION OF HERPES VIRUS AND COLLOIDAL GOLD IN HELA CELLS AFTER CONTACT IN SUSPENSION

The way in which herpes virus of a well adapted strain penetrates susceptible HeLa cells has been investigated using thin sectioning techniques for electron microscopy. Mature virus particles and cells were mixed together in suspension cultures for 15, 30, 60, or 120 minutes so that the stages in virus uptake could be followed in sequence. The ingestion of particles of colloidal gold by HeLa cells under similar conditions was studied for comparison in parallel experiments. After 15 minutes' contact, the mature virus was found adsorbed on the surface of the cells but separated from them by a narrow gap in which phosphotungstic acid staining was sometimes able to reveal an extraneous coat which appeared as an amorphous layer on the outer aspect of the plasma membrane. When mixing continued for longer the particles were present in deep invaginations or actual cytoplasmic vacuoles, with their outer layers in various stages of stripping and digestion. The stripped, naked, central portion of the virus was occasionally found in these vacuoles but was more commonly free in the cytoplasmic matrix; the mode of transition between these sites could not be determined. Where contact continued for 2 hours these phenomena were much less frequently observed. The larger particles of colloidal gold were ingested in the same way as the virus, but smaller ones were taken up in micropinocytosis vesicles. The gold passed through membrane-bounded cytoplasmic spaces to accumulate in vacuoles from which, in contrast to herpes particles, it did not escape. These findings are discussed, and considered with particular reference to their bearing on the initiation of infection, the uptake and disposal of particles by cells, and the influence on the latter of virus morphology.

ELECTRON MICROSCOPE OBSERVATIONS ON THE SURFACE ADENOSINE TRIPHOSPHATASE-LIKE ENZYMES OF HELA CELLS INFECTED WITH HERPES VIRUS

HeLa cells infected with herpes simplex virus have been examined in thin sections by electron microscopy after cytochemical staining for the presence of surface enzymes splitting adenosine triphosphate. As with uninfected HeLa cultures (18), the opaque enzyme reaction product was localized at the plasma membranes of about half the cells, tending to be present where there were microvilli and absent on smooth surfaces. Where mature extracellular herpes particles were found in association with cell membranes showing the enzyme activity, they were invariably likewise stained, and conversely, those mature particles which lay close against cells without reaction product at the surface were themselves free of it. Particles found budding into cytoplasmic vacuoles were also always without opaque deposit since this was never seen at vacuolar membranes, even in cells having the activity at the surface. The enzyme reaction product thus provided a marker indicating the manner in which the particles escape from cells and mature by budding out through cellular membranes, carrying, in the process, a portion of the latter on to themselves to form the outer viral limiting membrane. In some instances, virus particles were observed with more opaque material covering them than was present at the cell membrane with which they were associated. This finding has been taken as evidence for a physiological waxing and waning of surface enzyme activity of adenosine triphosphatase type. The fine structure of the mature extracellular virus as prepared here, using glutaraldehyde fixation, is also recorded. The observations and interpretations are discussed in full.

VARIANTS OF HERPES SIMPLEX VIRUS: ISOLATION, CHARACTERIZATION, AND FACTORS INFLUENCING PLAQUE FORMATION

Rapp, Fred (Baylor University College of Medicine, Houston, Tex.). Variants of herpes simplex virus: isolation, characterization, and factors influencing plaque formation. J. Bacteriol. 86:985-991. 1963.-Variants of herpes simplex virus were isolated which differed in plaque size and in virulence for rabbits and mice. Keratitis on the rabbit cornea and generalized disease were associated with the large, but not the small, plaque variants. The large plaque variants were about as neurovirulent as was the parent strain for weanling mice, but the majority of the small plaque variants were only 1% as virulent for mice as was the parent virus. Agar inhibited the formation of plaques by the parent strain and all variants tested; development of plaques was retarded and the number of plaques was approximately 60% less than those developing under an overlay in which methyl cellulose had been substituted for the agar. Rabbit kidney cells and human embryonic lung fibroblasts were more sensitive than mouse embryo fibrolasts to infection with all variants tested.