LYMPHOID SUSPENSION CULTURES FROM PATIENTS WITH VIRAL HEPATITIS

Abstract

Long-term lymphoid suspension cultures have been established with relative ease from peripheral blood of heterophile-negative icteric patients with the typical symptoms and clinical and laboratory findings of viral hepatitis. These cell systems may be the ideal tissue for isolation and propagation of the ætiological agent of viral hepatitis which has thus far eluded more usual methods of recovery. Significant titres of anti-H.L.V. (herpes-like virus, Epstein-Barr virus) antibody have been found uniformly in these patients. Presence of H.L.V. antigen has been detected in two cell lines by direct immunofluorescence but was absent in another despite demonstration of herpes-like particles in this line by ultrastructure analysis. These findings suggest that circulating cells from a number of presumed viral diseases associated with a lymphoproliferative phase have increased potential for long-term in-vitro proliferation and that the presence of H.L.V. in these systems may not be of ætiological significance.