Abortive infection of Japanese quail cells with avian sarcoma viruses

Abstract

The replication of Prague strains of Rous sarcoma virus (PR RSV) and avian sarcoma virus B77 in Japanese quail cells is abortive in a quantitative sense. Although efficient infection of quail cells, as evidenced by transformation, was obtained with these viruses, the yield of progeny was suppressed by 10 2-fold or more relative to the chick cell host, and for many clones of transformed quail cells tested, no yield could be detected. Infectious center assays, however, indicated that each transformed cell produces a small yield of progeny. The yield of progeny can be enhanced by prior infection of quail cells with avian leukosis viruses or rescued by superinfection with avian sarcoma viruses inoculated at higher multiplicity than the initial infecting virus. B77-transformed, abortively infected quail cells synthesize viral envelope proteins as evidenced by the complementation of the defective Bryan high titer strain of Rous sarcoma virus (BH RSV); the dominant progeny species of such complementation is, however, genotypically BH RSV. The possibility that the replication of the B77 genome in quail cells is inefficient is suggested.