Chemical Dissection of Mammalian cells with Liberation of biologically intact Viruses

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Abstract
A strongly cytolytic reagent (10% sodium desoxycholate in saturated urea solution in twice distilled water) was used for this dissolution of infected cell cultures without essential loss of poliovirus titer. The cell lysate was further diluted and dialyzed against distilled water to a concentration of urea or rather desoxycholate which was no longer harmful to the cells. Treatment of the lysate or dialvzate with ribonuclease did not reduce the infectivity; this finding was taken as evidence of the biological integrity of the urea-desoxycholate-treated virus particles. The use of the procedure for the isolation of the poliomyelitis virus (Mahoney strain) and of infectious nucleic acid from mouse brain was carried out successfully also. Similarly the lipid-containing vaccine virus from chorioallantois membrane or from HeLa cell cultures were isolated in total yield by urea-desoxycholate solution. Finally, logarithmic amounts of poliovirus in arrested infection of HeLa cells were set free by means of the urea-desoxycholate method. These facts underline the possibilities of application of this method.