Degeneration of lens and overgrowth of Harderian glands in hamsters neonatally injected with parvovirus MVM-i.

Injection of newborn hamsters with 500 plaque-forming units or more of the parvovirus MVM-i, produces an eye defect in a large percentage of the treated animals at maturity. The incidence is directly related to the amount of virus given and is independent of sex, size, or antibody levels to MVM-i. The abnormality is characterized by very small eyes with degenerate lens and adjacent retinal layers, and also by such extensive hypertrophy of the Harderian glands that they may encase the orbit and occlude the eye. On the basis of this latter finding and of previous work by other investigators, we suggest that the glands, whose function is unknown, may act as accessory photoreceptors.