Polyamine depletion of cells reduces the infectivity of herpes simplex virus but not the infectivity of Sindbis virus.

The effect of polyamines on the viral growth was examined using cell strains that could be effectively depleted of polyamines. In order to avoid the polyamines present in serum we used a polyamine auxotrophic Chinese hamster ovary cell line P22 growing in serum-free medium and Vero cells growing in low serum medium. The final yield of an enveloped RNA virus, Sindbis, in P22 cells was not decreased by depletion of cellular polyamines although the onset of the viral replication was delayed. In contrast the final yield of an enveloped DNA virus, Herpes simplex virus (HSV), was considerably reduced in Vero cells, depleted of polyamines by alpha-difluoromethylornithine, an inhibitor of polyamine synthesis. However, the number of HSV particles detected by electronmicroscopy was not decreased. Southern blot analysis of HSV-DNA from the polyamine depleted and the control cells showed changes in the relative abundance of the DNA fragments suggesting that impairment in DNA synthesis may have caused the decreased infectivity of HSV.