Studies on herpes simplex virus in tissue culture

Conclusions and summary

The Z strain of herpes simplex virus as well as three freshly isolated strains of the same virus caused a complete degeneration of the fibroblastic outgrowth in roller tube cultures of human embryonic lung. Infectivity titrations made in such tissue cultures regularly gave higher values than the lethality titers obtained by yolk sac inoculation of embryonated eggs. Furthermore, the virus amounts found in the fluid phase of roller cultures were comparable to those obtained in the allantoic fluid of eggs. Three strains of herpes simplex virus have so far been isolated directly in tissue culture from herpetic vesicles. However, more work is needed, involving isolation experiments from pathological specimens simultaneously in tissue cultures and other hosts before the relative sensitivity of the tissue culture method for primary isolation purposes can be evaluated.