Acquisition of susceptibility to vesicular stomatitis virus infection by murine resident peritoneal cells during culturing in vitro.

We have studied the effect of culturing in vitro of BALB/c--mouse resident peritoneal cells (RPC) on their ability to replicate vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). Results of 36 experiments performed on RPC, freshly isolated from individual female mice, showed that over 70% of them expressed constitutive antiviral immunity against VSV infection. The virus multiplied to low titers (< or = 10(3) TCID50/10(6) cells) only in 10 out of 36 cases. After several days in culture, the RPC were found to lose the resistance and VSV multiplied in the cells to high titers (up to 10(7) TCID50/10(6) cells). The time period, required for the cultures to reach a full ability to replicate the virus, was individually differentiated and ranged from 24 h to over 96 h.