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SUMMARY: Above a value of one, repeatedly doubling the multiplicity of infection of chick embryo cells by vesicular stomatitis virus progressively shortened the latent period by about 0·6 hr.; this phenomenon is referred to as ‘shortened latency’. Varying the multiplicity above unity with dilute-passage stocks did not interfere with rate of infective virus release, number of cells infected, or final yield, i.e. there was no ‘von Magnus’ effect or other obvious interference phenomena.
The doubling time for virus release was also about 0·6 hr. This suggested that virus may have been growing as a simple intracellular pool equally accessible to all adsorbing virus, and that 1 particle was released when the pool reached a certain size (perhaps 20–200 units) irrespective of inocula. However, other explanations are possible, and of those allowing experimental test, earlier initial adsorption of virus, multiplicity reactivation amongst a partly inactivated population, more rapid elution of attached virus or more rapid release of accumulated internal virus could not account for shortened latency.