Persistence of the Viral Genome in Interferon-Treated Cells Infected with Oncogenic or Nononcogenic Viruses

In AKR mouse cells chronically infected with a murine leukemia virus, treatment with interferon for nine days resulted in sustained inhibition of extracellular production of murine leukemia virus but no inhibition of viral intracellular p30 antigen or of reverse transcriptase. Removal of interferon resulted in rapid reversal of these effects. Interferon-treated mouse L-cells were infected with high multiplicities of vesicular stomatitis virus or herpes simplex virus type 1. Infectious virus and intracellular viral antigen were rapidly eliminated from the interferon-treated cultures infected with herpes simplex virus. In cultures infected with vesicular stomatitis virus, titers of virus remained low in interferon-treated cells, but after about two weeks they rose rapidly and the cultures were destroyed. If treatment with interferon was reinstituted as late as nine days after primary infection, infectious vesicular stomatitis virus was eliminated, and there was no evidence for survival of the viral genome in these cultures. In the cultures infected with murine leukemia virus, inhibition of production of virus by treatment with interferon was possible, but the viral genome was not eliminated. In cells acutely infected with vesicular stomatitis virus or herpes simplex virus, however, the viral genomes were apparently eliminated from cultures treated with interferon.