Ultrastructural aspects of cytomegalovirus-infected fibroblastic stromal cells of human bone marrow

Abstract

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and bone marrow interactions are important in the pathogenesis of HCMV infections. Human bone marrow fibroblastic stromal cells (HBFM-sc) were infected by Towne strain of cytomegalovirus (CMV) in cell culture. Several cytostructural features of control bone marrow stromal cells are described and compared with those of CMV-infected cells. Under these experimental conditions, HBFM-sc are cell types that can be successfully infected by CMV in vitro. The CMV-infected cells displayed typical features characteristic of DNA virus infections, such as cellular swelling, intranuclear inclusions, nucleolar condensation and disappearance (at the end stage), nuclear envelope proliferation as redundant folds. Other characteristics of CVM-infected cells include mitochondrial enlargement and vacuolization, cytoplasmic dense bodies associated or not with viral particles, accumulation and extrusion of viral particles and dense bodies. These preliminary observations shed some light on human bone-marrow stromal-cell morphology and function, one of the latter being that of a potentially harmful reservoir for CMV virus.