Replication and persistence of measles virus in defined subpopulations of human leukocytes

Replication of Edmonston strain measles virus was studied in several human lymphoblast lines, as well as in defined subpopulations of circulating human leukocytes. It was found that measles virus can productively infect T cells, B cells, and monocytes from human blood. These conclusions were derived from infectious center studies on segregated cell populations, as well as from ultrastructural analyses on cells labeled with specific markers. In contrast, mature polymorphonuclear cells failed to synthesize measles virus nucleocapsids even after infection at a relatively high multiplicity of infection. Measles virus replicated more efficiently in lymphocytes stimulated with mitogens than in unstimulated cells. However, both phytohemagglutinin and pokeweed mitogen had a negligible stimulatory effect on viral synthesis in purified populations of monocytes. In all instances the efficiency of measles virus replication by monocytes was appreciably less than that of mitogenically stimulated lymphocytes or of continuously culture lymphoblasts. Under standard conditions of infection, all of the surveyed lymphoblast lines produced equivalent amounts of measles virus regardless of the major histocompatibility (HL-A) haplotype. Hence, no evidence was found that the HL-A3,7 haplotype conferred either an advantage or disadvantage with respect to measles virus synthesis in an immunologically neutral environment. A persistent infection with measles virus could be established in both T and B lymphoblasts. The release of infectious virus from such persistently infected cells was stable over a period of several weeks and was approximately 100-fold less than peak viral titers obtained in each respective line after acute infection.