Since Pasteur’s day probably more total investigative effort has been directed to studies of rabies virus than to any other one viral agent, with the possible exception of poliovirus. Most of this effort has been concerned with the practical public health aspects of this virus infection and it is in such fields as diagnosis, prophylaxis, and epidemiology that most significant advances have been made in recent years. The extensive developments of modern virology at the molecular and cellular levels have not, in general, been applied to the study of rabies virus.
Die vorliegende Übersicht stellt sich zur Aufgabe, einige neuere Forschungsergebnisse über die biologischen Ursachen des Virustropismus zu diskutieren, wie sie insbesondere bei Untersuchungen über den Infektionsmechanismus der Enteroviren erzielt wurden. Diese Virusgruppe ist während der letzten Jahre im Zuge der massiven Attacke gegen die Poliomyelitis intensiv studiert worden, vor allem das Poliovirus selbst, dann aber auch die Coxsackie- und die ECHO-Viren. Wieweit die an Enteroviren erworbenen Kenntnisse auf andere Gruppen der menschund tierpathogenen Virusarten (Lwoff, Horne und Tournier 1963) übertragen werden dürfen, muß dahingestellt bleiben. Trotz zahlreicher gemeinsamer Eigenschaften der Virusarten bestehen im einzelnen erhebliche biologische Unterschiede zwischen Enteroviren, Myxoviren, Poxviren, Adenoviren, Reoviren, Herpesviren, Arborviren, um nur die für den Arzt und den medizinischen Wissenschaftler wichtigsten Gruppen zu nennen. Jedenfalls sind unsere Kenntnisse über die Infektionsmechanismen dieser verschiedenen Virusarten alles andere als vollständig, namentlich wenn man das Geschehen auf der cellulären oder makromolekularen Ebene ins Auge faßt.
In attempting to review recent research dealing with Rous sarcoma, it is interesting to note the quantity and diversity of investigations reported within the past six years following several decades of relative inactivity in this important area. It is obvious that in order to be of value, this review must be limited to but a few areas of a broad spectrum. Setting such limits is difficult. Selection of topics must be both subjective and arbitrary, and done with the full realization that literature of interest and importance will be omitted altogether. We admittedly have also been influenced by our own research interests, and by our reluctance to stray from areas of our own personal experience. It is the intent of this review to evaluate and integrate recent findings concerning interactions between Rous sarcoma virus (RSV) and its host, both as cell and as organism. This subject will be approached from the following five viewpoints: a) Morphological and viral aspects of tumor pathogenesis, b) The relative roles of the tumor cell and the virus in tumor induction, c) Factors of host resistance to infection with RSV, d) The effects of humoral antibody upon infection and the subsequent development of malignant disease, and e) Experimental chemotherapy of virus-induced Rous sarcoma. No attempt will be made to review numerous studies concerned with the kinetics and characteristics of RSV infection in vitro (8),(35), (38), (39),(65), (74), (84–87),(104–107), (112), the studies on adaptation of the virus to growth in mammalian species (55),(64), (91), (101–103), or the electron microscopic studies on ultrastructural aspects of RSV infection (30), (46–49), that have been recently reviewed by other investigators.
Experimental work on Measles dates from 1911, when Anderson and Goldberger succeeded in transmitting the disease from man to the macaque monkey. Progress, however, was initially hampered by difficulty encountered in transmitting the illness to experimental animals other than mice. But since the successful isolation of the measles virus in human or monkey kidney cells by Enders and Peebles (1954), very promising advances in this field of research have been made by many workers.
Good clinical descriptions of trachoma have been available for at least 3500 years, since the Ebers papyrus mentions the exudative and cicatricial features of this eye disease and its treatment with copper salts (Tnvoeson 1962). It is probable that the clinical picture of trachoma as it occurs in the Mediterranean basin and in the Orient has changed little over the centuries. It is believed by the World Health Organization (1952) that today 400 million persons are afflicted with trachoma and that 20 million of them are totally or economically blind.
Since the discovery by Marmorek (42) that filtrates of streptococcal cultures possessed hemolytic activity, much work has been done on the hemolysins produced by streptococci. Todd (77) was the first to demonstrate that streptococciisolated from human sources produce two distinct hemolysins, which he named oxygenlabile streptolysin O (SLO) and oxygen-stable streptolysin S (SLS). SLO could be found in supernates of cultures in ordinary or defined medium (13), (15), (59), (77) and was found to be antigenic, whereas SLS was produced only in media containing serum and was apparently not antigenic (4), (77), (80).
Interstitial plasma-cell pneumonia of unfortunately is common in European countries. Lately, it has also been recognized more frequently on the American continent (Berdnikoff,2Eberling and Cohen,4Gagne and Hould,5Howard and Sheldon,7Junger and Wyllie,8Lunseth et al.,9and Sheldon12). This highly contagious plague of the prematures continues to present a dilemma with regard to its etiology, epidemiology, and therapy. In 1952, Vaněk and Jerovec14reported an organism, the carinii, in the alveoli of affected lungs. To date, however, two unknowns persist about this organism: (1) Is the Pneumocystis carinii really the etio-logic agent of the disease, or is it simply associated with another agent, possibly a virus? (2) Is the Pneumocystis carinii a protozoon, or is it simply a degradative product of a host cell—the result of nuclear or cytoplasmatic degeneration? The studies reported below focus on these points.
