Morphological and virological investigations of cell strains cultured from the brain in Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis.

Cell strains were established in culture from fragments of the brain from 2 cases each of Jakob-Creutzfeldt (JC) disease and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). After about 12 weeks strains from the former spontaneously formed persistent heaped up nodules of cells which appeared to produce reticulin-like fibrils as well as confluent sheets of rounded and spindle, fibroblast-like cells. Similar sheets of cells were obtained from the cases of SSPE but the only nodules formed were smaller and ephemeral. Attempts to detect virus in all 4 strains were made by inoculation of supernatant fluids into cultures of other laboratory cells, haemadsorption, co-cultivation, electron microscopy and immunofluorescence, and testing for interferon production. No evidence was found by any of these methods of the persistent presence of virus in the strains. Immunofluorescence revealed a probable anti-glial cell IgM autoantibody in one case of JC disease. Morphologically some cells resembled astrocytes and others fibroblasts. Those from JC disease contained more vacuoles and redundant membranes than did those from the cases of SSPE, features that are particularly striking in brain cells in human and animal cases of the spongiform encephalopathies.