Nucleic acids of measles and vesicular stomatitis viruses.

Abstract

Measles virus is classified as a myxovirus on the basis of its structure and cytopathic effect in tissue cultures(1,2,3), and therefore was tentatively assumed to be an RNA virus although the nature of its nucleic acid had not been established. Because 5-fluorode-oxyuridine (FUDR) inhibits the synthesis of DNA viruses(4,5,6), it can be used to differentiate RNA and DNA viruses. This report on the effect of FUDR on production of virus by an established line of cercopithecus monkey kidney cells (BS-C-1) (7), provides indirect evidence that measles actually is an RNA virus, and incidentally that vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) is also an RNA virus.A culture of the Edmonston strain of measles virus adapted to HeLa cells was used to inoculate 6 tubes containing monolayers of BS-C-1 cells. As assayed in the same cell line, the virus concentration of the inoculum was 104.5ID50 per tube. At time of inoculation the cell count was approximately 2 × 105 per monolayer. The medium used for virus growth and maintenanc...