Surface Morphology of Leukemia Virus-Infected Lymphoid Cells

Abstract

The malignant transformation of normal cells by tumor viruses, both in vivo and in vitro, is the subject of much current interest. Infection of mice with Friend Leukemia virus (FLV) produces marked changes to lymphoid cells which results in a generalized immunosuppression (3,10,11). Results of various studies in this and other laboratories indicate that the virus preferentially affects antibody precursor cells rather than antibody forming cells (6,8). Examination of spleen cells from FLV-infected mice with the transmission electron microscope (TEM), has shown the presence of C type particles as well as viruses budding from immature blastlike lymphoid cells (1,9). The present investigation deals with changes in the surface morphology of lymphoid cells which can be detected with the scanning electron microscope (SEM) in mice infected with FLV and correlates these with immunosuppression.