Persistent infection of L cells with an ovine abortion strain of Chlamydia psittaci.

L cells inoculated at multiplicities of infection greater than or equal to 1 inclusion-forming unit of the abortigenic chlamydial strain B577 were destroyed within 10 to 15 days. Upon continued incubation in fresh medium, a few surviving cells repopulated the flasks, and the reemerging cultures remained persistently infected. The persistent state was characterized by cycles of repopulation with a low ratio of infected cells and cycles of extensive cytopathic changes in which greater than 90% of the cells had chlamydial inclusions and which could be delayed or even terminated by penicillin treatment. Immunofluorescence and superinfection during the period of repopulation revealed that the persistently infected cells could adsorb chlamydiae but their multiplication was arrested. This nonpermissive state could be terminated by the specific action of cycloheximide. L cells spontaneously cured from a persistent infection exhibited no change in susceptibility to chlamydiae when compared with normal L cells. However, chlamydiae derived from L cells after 7.5 months of persistence destroyed L-cell monolayers more rapidly and at lower multiplicities of infection than the wild type. This state of chlamydia-host cell interaction could not be established with the arthropathogenic strain LW613 because chlamydial infectivity was lost after the first cytolytic burst of infection in the cell cultures. The persistence described for the strain B577-L-cell system appears to differ from previously described models involving other chlamydial strains.