DECREASED INTERFERON SENSITIVITY AND PRODUCTION IN CELLS TRANSFORMED BY SV40 AND OTHER ONCOGENIC AGENTS

From a pool of primary rat embryo fibroblast cells, three lines—two SV40‐infected and one control—were serially propagated. Prior to unequivocal morphological evidence of transformation, increased sensitivity to vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) was found in the two SV40‐infected lines when compared to the control line. The increased VSV sensitivity of the transformed cells seems to be due to a diminished production of and sensitivity to interferon, and not to differences in adsorption. When a collection of diverse transformed cell lines were also compared with arbitrarily selected control cell populations, the majority of the transformed cells also exhibited enhanced VSV sensitivity. Lines transformed by methylcholanthrene also featured this property. The data suggest that diminished sensitivity to and production of interferon is an early consequence of infection by oncogenic viruses, and a property that persists in many lines of transformed cells. Copyright © 1969 Wiley‐Liss, Inc., A Wiley Company