PARVOVIRUS H-1 INHIBITS GROWTH OF SHORT-TERM TUMOR-DERIVED BUT NOT NORMAL MAMMARY TISSUE-CULTURES

Infection with parvovirus H-I strongly interfered with the proliferati on of non-established tissue cultures derived from human breast tumors , but had little effect on the growth of corresponding normal human ma mmary cells. Even though tumor cells were always more sensitive to the virus than normal tissue from the same patient, appreciable quantitat ive differences were observed among tumor specimens. With time and sub -cultures, the killing effect of the virus on tumor cells became ampli fied. The impaired growth of infected tumor cells was due both to cyto toxic and to cytostatic action of H-I virus and was associated with th eir greater capacity for virus-DNA amplification as compared with norm al cells. (C) 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.