Tubular subviral structure produced in adenovirus-infected KB cells.

At 40 to 90 h after infection with high multiplicities of adenovirus type 2, 4 to 15% of KB cells produced relatively few intranuclear virions detectable by electron microscopy. The nuclei of these cells were found to contain long tubular structures which were made up at least in part by adenovirus structural proteins. The ends of these tubular structures were frequently terminated by morphologically normal adenovirions in varying degrees of completeness. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the production of these aberrant virus structures results from the malfunction or absence of some essential host-provided function and not from a defect in the infecting virus.