Cellular deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis and loss of contact inhibition in irradiated and contact-inhibited cell cultures infected with fibroma virus.

Cultural changes that follow infection of rabbit kidney cells with fibroma virus were studied. Characteristic alterations of cell morphology and development of multilayered piles and cords of cells were found to occur in infected cultures in which cell division was blocked by gamma radiation or by cell crowding and serum deprivation, thus indicating no dependence upon cell division. Fibroma virus infection did not remove blocks to cell division, but it did exert distinct effects upon nuclear deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis in cells blocked by radiation or cell crowding. Use of tritium-labeled thymidine and autoradiography demonstrated that after infection initial inhibition of nuclear incorporation was followed by sharply increased nuclear labeling at a time that coincided with beginning alterations of cell morphology and development of cell piling.