Growth of defective subacute sclerosing panencephalitis viruses in human neural cells and their neurovirulence in mice.

A defective subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) virus which had been passaged in human embryonic lung cells was transferred to cultures of three neural cell types: neuroblastoma, oligodendroglioma and glioblastoma. The growth characteristics of the virus in these cells were essentially similar to those in non-neural cells. On the other hand, a marked difference in neurovirulence was noticed for the virus grown in neural cells when examined by intracerebral inoculation into mice. The virus passaged in neuroblastoma and oligodendroglioma cells showed high neurovirulence, inducing an acute encephalitis, whereas the virus passaged in human embryonic lung cells and that in glioblastoma cells did not show neurovirulence. These results suggest that the virus recovered its neurovirulence after passage in certain human neural cells.