Attempts to Establish Cell Cultures Infected with the Viruses of Subacute Spongiform Encephalopathies 1

Abstract

Abstract

Attempts to establish cell cultures infected with the viruses of scrapie, kuru, and Creutzfeldt—Jakob disease (CJD) were of limited success. Seven cultures of normal cell lines inoculated with brain suspensions containing kuru or CJD virus and nearly half (16134) of the primary cell cultures derived from brains of humans and experimental animals with subacute spongiform encephalopathies were infectious. However, following prolonged maintenance or serial passages, cultures lost infectivity. Further, of 10 rapidly growing cell lines produced by SV40 transformation of cultures derived from eight scrapie-infected mice, one CJD-infected chimpanzee, and one kuru-infected chimpanzee, only one, a transformed scrapie mouse brain cell line, maintained infectivity. In all infectious cultures, a minimum of 10⁴ cells were required to transmit 1 LD₅₀ to an assay animal.