The impact of interfacial interactions on poliovirus infectivity in detergent-treated cell monolayer cultures

Abstract

Monolayer cultures of Buffalo green monkey (BGM) kidney cells were inoculated with different aqueous solutions of anionic detergents prior to infection with poliomyelitisvirus type 1 (PMV-1). Alteration of inoculated cell culture monolayers was assessed by polarized light microscopy. Based on their visual appearance, altered monolayers were arbitrarily assigned different rating categories (r.c.) ranging from 1 to 8. For each detergent concentration, the rate of monolayer destruction was recorded and graphically integrated into the plots of r.c. against detergent concentration. In addition to a direct detergentmediated alteration of the cellular monolayers, inoculation of detergent-conditioned BGM cultures with PMV-1 apparently affected virus-mediated alteration as well. The type of alteration as well as the initial rate of cytopathic destruction of the monolayer depended on several factors including the stereochemical properties of the detergent used, the final detergent concentration as well as the organic content and inoculation volume of the preconditioning solution, and the infectious titer of the viral inoculum. Moreover, infectivity kinetics revealed that cytopathic effects may be reactivated after a period of viral inhibition. In this way, at least two cycles of virus generation successively alternating with cell proliferation could be recorded simply by supplementing the system with energy for growth. From the presented results, it became apparent that modifications of cell surface activity contribute to virus infectivity mechanisms. Since treatment of aqueous PMV-1 suspensions has been previously described to largely affect viral infectious titers, viral uptake seems to be triggered by the phase behavior of viral particles upon contact with the plasma membrane. Therefore, aquatic samples that have been treated with anionic detergents in order to optimize virus isolation rates should be extensively washed prior to inoculation on cell culture.