Shope fibroma virus growth curve in suspended tissue culture.

As a tumour-producing agent, Shope's rabbit fibroma virus (a member of the myxoma-fibroma subgroup of the poxviruses) is endowed with potentialities which differ from those of vaccinia virus. This work attemps to find, by the technique of the one-step growth curve in suspended cells, if the virus replication scheme is similar to other poxviruses. Fibroma virus seems to multiply rather slowly and to a limited level, but the pattern is characteristic of the poxviruses: eclipse phase, exponential multiplication, reduced release of virus in the medium are the main features.