Replication of animal viruses in differentiating muscle cells: vaccinia and herpes simplex virus type 1.

Cells cultured from the breast muscles of 11 to 12-day-old chick embryos were infected in the undifferentiated mitotic myoblast stage or in the terminally differentiated non-mitotic myotube stage with one of two DNA viruses, vaccinia and herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1). DNA synthesis was measured and production ov virus-specific DNA detected in cells infected as myoblasts or myotubes by isotope labelling, autoradiographic and buoyant density centrifugation techniques. Furthermore, fully fused myotubes resemble myoblasts in their ability to support productive infection by these DNA viruses although DNA replication and nuclear division have ceased in myotubes and only minimum levels of host-cell DNA polymerase activity are present.