Microtubules and microfilaments in HSV-Infected rabbit-kidney cells.

In rabbit kidney cells infected with strains of Herpes simplex virus producing either cell-rounding or polycaryocytosis. Vinblastine induced paracrystals. This could be shown by phase-contrast- and electron-microscopy. Infections were done under one-step-growth conditions or at low MOI. 90 per cent noninfected cells contained stress fibers as detected by Servablue R250-staining. Shortly after recruitment into polycaryocytes, stress fibres of normal length appearing in criss-cross arrangement can be seen in the periphery of these cells. Later they polymerize to very long fibers and finally they are partially destroyed. The time of destruction depends on the MOI employed. By using Actinomycin D and/or Cycloheximide as blocking agents, it could be shown that polymerization of microfilaments correlates in time with giant cell formation. In view of the fact that the virus synthesis is accompanied in parallel by a special rearrangement of microfilaments as well as polycaryocytosis, both these processes have to be considered as caused by early (and late ?) protein-synthesis (beta-/gamma-proteins) but not as induced by "very-early" proteins (alpha-proteins).