Complementation rescue of Rous sarcoma virus from transformed mammalian cells by polyethylene glycol-mediated cell fusion.

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is effective as a fusing agent for the rescue of virus from Rous sarcoma virus-transformed mammalian cells. The procedure of PEG-mediated rescue of virus from virogenic cell lines is described, and the technique is compared with that of Sendai virus-mediated rescue. Virus may be rescued quantitatively from virogenic cell lines by plating mitomycin C-killed transformed mammalian cells with chicken embryo cells, treating the monolayers with 50% PEG and overlaying the monolayers with focus agar. The number of foci that appeared reflected the number of heterokaryons in the fusion mixtures that released infectious virus. PEG gave reproducible results in virus rescue experiments with an efficiency equal to the best Sendai virus preparations. In addition to the description of the technique for PEG-mediated virus rescue from virogenic cell lines, a method for virus rescue from nonvirogenic lines is presented. Preinfection of the chicken embryo cells with helper avian leukosis virus (Rous-associated virus) prior to fusion with mammalian cells transformed by defective viruses complements the virus defect. We examined four nonvirogenic cell lines, and all released infectious virus in the complementation rescue assay.