Viruses in human tumors. i. hodgkin's disease

A continuous cell culture designated SS5 was established from a lymph node biopsy specimen taken from a male with Hodgkin's disease. The cells grew in suspension as aggregates, in pairs, and singly. During their logarithmic growth the cell doubling time was approximately 24 hours. Chromosome studies were carried out on cells from the patient's bone marrow, the lymph node biopsy before culture, and again after 4 months' culture. On direct examination, the bone marrow and lymph node showed no abnormalities. After 4 months in culture, 89% of the cells examined had 46 chromosomes and were pseudodiploid. There were a low incidence of polyploidy (0.4%) and a low incidence of cells with aberrations (4%). Electron microscope examination showed that the cells carried two kinds of virus-like particles: The herpes-type virus which has been described for cultured Burkitt's tumor cells, and other particles of about the same size with morphology suggestive of a different type of virus. Since the herpes-type virus will not replicate in monolayer cultures, we could separate the two types by inoculating WI38 monolayer cultures with a cell-free concentrate from the SS5 line. Virus replication on passages in the WI38 cells was obvious by specific cellular changes, but only occasional virus-like particles were demonstrable by electron microscopy in the early passages. After 20 passages, abundant virus became evident as extracellular particles. When virus from the WI38 culture was introduced into a human lymphocyte suspension culture, massive virus budding from the cell membrane became evident. The virus ranged from 90–150 mμ, with most about 120 mμ in diameter, and produced a filamentous component 15 mμ in diameter. The filaments were shown to become the nucleoid of the budding virus. The virus was similar immunologically to simian virus SV5.