Virus like Particles in a Human Lung Tumor

Abstract

Ultrastructural studies of pulmonary needle biopsies from patients with alveolar cell carcinoma (ACC) revealed the presence of a virus-like material in the nucleus and cytoplasm of tumor cells. Stinson et. al. reported the presence of filamentous virus-like particles in four of six cases in an ultrastructural study of ACC. In vitro studies by Coalson et. al. confirmed the presence of a biological agent and demonstrated that cell-free supernate from tumor cell cultures could induce cytopathic effect when applied to indicator cell lines. It was also shown in this report that tumor cell lines derived from this tumor produced the filterable biological agent until the 18-20 passage in culture. An extension of this investigation on the cell lines derived from ACC demonstrated that a unique antigen was associated with ACC tumor cells and that this antigenicity could be induced in indicator cell lines following treatment with cell free extracts.