Enhanced or Inhibited Plaque Formation of Superinfecting Viruses in Yaba Virus-infected Cells

Tsuchiya, Tagaya & Tsuruhara (1969) reported that Yaba virus caused overt cytological changes in a cynomolgus monkey kidney cell line, JINET (Tsuchiya, Takayama & Tagaya, 1969). Although markedly altered in morphology, the virus-infected JINET cells could be maintained in culture for periods up to 2 to 3 weeks. We have now examined the susceptibility of these cells to superinfection with other viruses and found that with some viruses plaques were larger and more numerous in cells infected with Yaba virus than in uninfected counterparts. With other viruses plaque production was completely suppressed in Yaba-infected cells. We describe here the results of comparative plaque assay of various viruses in uninfected JINET cells (J(N)) and JINET cells infected with Yaba virus (J(Y)).

JINET cells were grown as previously described (Tsuchiya, Takayama & Tagaya, 1969), and maintained in superinfection experiments in Earle's salt solution containing 0.5% lactalbumine hydrolysate and 0.15% sodium bicarbonate.