Susceptibility of human diploid fibroblast strains to transformation by SV40 virus.

A quantitative system has been developed for the study of transformation of human diploid fibroblasts in culture by two oncogenic viruses, SV40 and the E46 strain of adeno 7-SV40 "hybrid" virus. Seven of the eleven cell strains derived from human skin biopsies when infected with SV40 (10(9) tissue culture infective doses per milliliter) gave rise to transformed colonies with approximately the same frequency (0.03 percent). Two strains derived from patients with Fanconi's anemia, an autosomal recessive disease associated with a high incidence of chromosome abnormalities and spontaneous neoplasms, gave values more than ten times higher. Two strains from persons heterozygous for this gene were also considerably more susceptible to viral transformation.