Altered Amphibian Cell Morphology Following Treatment with Polyene Antibiotic and a Mammalian RNA Virus 1

Abstract

Summary

Polyene antibiotics are agents known to damage cell membranes. The hexaene antibiotic, mediocidin, was used in an attempt to introduce a mammalian virus (Mengo) into normally nonpermissive ICR 2A haploid frog cells. Although no infectious virus could be recovered from mediocidin treated cells exposed to Mengo virus, a change in VSV susceptibility, temperature sensitivity and an apparently permanent change in morphology took place—from fibroblastic to epithelial—in the cells cultured at 23°. Neither the polyene antibiotic nor the virus used alone was capable of inducing these alterations in ICR 2A cells.