Luiz Horta-Barbosa

Isolation of measles virus from brain cell cultures of two patients with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis.

Summary Measles virus was isolated from brain cell tissue cultures derived from two SSPE patients. These cultures proved to contain intracellular measles antigen which was not released in the fluid phase. Infectious, complete virus was obtained when mixed cultures containing the brain cells and HeLa cells were prepared. It appears that SSPE is due to suppressed measles virus infection. Once “rescued” through the mixed culture technique, the virus recovered from SSPE patients proved indistinguishable from measles virus. Note added in proof: At the time of galley review of this paper, confirmation of our previous isolation of complete infectious measles virus was reported by Payne, F. E., Baublis, J. V. and Itabashi, H. H. (Isolation of Measles Virus from Cell Cultures of Brain from a Patient with Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis, New England Journal of Medicine 281, 585, 1969). These authors used the mixed culture technique which we reported for this purpose (Horta-Barbosa, L., Fuccillo, D. A., Sever, J. L. and Zeman, W., Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis: Isolation of Measles Virus from a Brain Biopsy, Nature 221, 974, March 8, 1969) with BSC-1 cells and continued propagation of the patients brain cells. The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable technical assistance of Miss Rebecca Schronce and Mrs. Anna Barbara Wittig.

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis: isolation of suppressed measles virus from lymph node biopsies.

Measles virus was isolated in mixed cultures of lymph node cells and HeLa cells. The agent was isolated by cocultivation from biopsy specimens of two of five patients with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis. The virus was identified by hemagglutination-inhibition, immunofluorescent, and neutralization tests. Biopsies from controls did not show evidence of measles virus.

VIRUS-LIKE PARTICLES AND NUCLEOPROTEIN-TYPE FILAMENTS IN BRAIN TISSUE FROM TWO PATIENTS WITH CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE

Abstract Two types of particles resembling virions were observed in biopsy tissue from each of two patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. In addition, aggregates of nucleoprotein-type filaments were seen in scattered unidentifiable cytoplasmic fragments or in extracellular spaces. A plaque was present in the white matter of one of the specimens and in the neuropil of the second. Status spongiosus was observed in the grey matter in both cases.

Some Characteristics of SSPE Measles Virus

Summary The in vitro comparison of two SSPE measles virus isolates and conventional measles virus demonstrated antigenic identity between these viruses. However, neutralization tests showed an avidity of the SSPE patients neutralizing antibody towards the wild measles virus rather than to the virus isolated from diseased brain. The cytopathology and plaque formation of these measles virus strains revealed greater resemblance between the SSPE measles and the vaccine strain of the virus than between SSPE measles and wild virus. Differences were found in the growth characteristics of the two SSPE virus isolates as measured by tissue culture assays.