PROPAGATION OF THE HUMAN POLYOMAVIRUS, JCV, IN HUMAN NEUROBLASTOMA CELL-LINES

Susceptibility to infection by the human polyomavirus, JCV, is determi ned by intracellular mechanisms which control transcription and replic ation. Originally thought to propagate well only in human cells of oli godendroglial lineage, JCV has recently been shown to infect astrocyte s, astrogliomas, and a neuroblastoma cell line. The data reported here describe two cell types that have been subcultured from a human neuro blastoma cell line, SK-N-SH. The SH-SY5Y subclone displays neuronal ph enotypes and is not susceptible to JCV infection, while the SH-EP subc lone displays glial cell phenotypes and is susceptible to infection. B inding of nuclear proteins from the permissive SH-EP cells to the nucl ear factor-1 (NF-1) site in the JCV regulatory DNA sequences results i n a gel shift pattern that is different from the nonpermissive SH-SY5Y cell proteins. Northern analysis of mRNA for the four classes of NF-1 proteins showed a predominance of the NF-1/X class in SH-EP cells sim ilar to the highly permissive human fetal glial cells. Very low levels of mRNA for NF-1/X were seen in the nonpermissive SH-SY5Y cells, simi lar to that seen for the nonpermissive HeLa cells. Several other cell lines tested that were permissive for JCV infection also showed synthe sis of the NF-1/X class of proteins. SH-EP cells represent a cell line in a glial cell lineage which is susceptible to JCV multiplication. T hese cells may be a useful cell culture system for the investigation o f DNA binding factors which correlates with viral susceptibility. (C) 1997 Academic Press.