Isolation of Measles Virus from Cell Cultures of Brain from a Patient with Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis

Isolation of measles virus from the brain of a patient with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis was accomplished by in vitro propagation of the patient's brain cells and cocultivation of the brain cells with a line of green-monkey-kidney cells. This observation offers direct evidence that measles virus has a a role in the etiology of the disease. Before the production of detectable, mature virus by the cell cultures, there was a prolonged period when they produced syncytia containing measles antigen, but they failed to hemadsorb.