Metabolic Changes in Chick Fibroblasts after Infection with Newcastle Disease Virus

Abstract

FOWL plague and Newcastle disease virus (NDV) are both myxoviruses but belong to different sub-groups. Both viruses show remarkable differences in the morphology of their inner component, the RNP-antigen¹, and the site of the multiplication of the RNP-antigens within the cell^2–4. With fowl plague virus it has been demonstrated that its RNA-synthesis is superimposed on cellular RNA-synthesis^5,6. Although some work concerning the influence of NDV-infection on cellular RNA and protein metabolism has been published by Wheelock and Tamm⁷, these authors did not differentiate between cellular and viral material in their autoradiographical studies. Thus it might have occurred, as is found with polio virus, that viral RNA-synthesis increases at the same rate as cellular RNA-synthesis decreases^8–10. Experiments were undertaken to determine whether NDV inhibits cellular synthesis of RNA and protein before or during the production of viral material like other RNA-containing viruses multiplying in the cytoplasm. This could be in contrast to the infection of those RNA-viruses like fowl plague, the RNP-antigen of which is made in the cell nucleus.