From: rms@acsu.buffalo.edu (Robert M. Straubinger)
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: Polio Vaccine & HeLa Cells
Date: 13 Apr 92 03:26:47 GMT
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Pharmaceutics
Note: non-commercial reproduction.
Archive-Number: 4850

In article <1992Apr11.033050.12750@cs.ucla.edu> bigoldberg@igc.org (Billi Goldberg) writes:
>Reference is made to "Crossing the species - viruses and the origins of 
>AIDS in perspective."  J. Seale, (1989) Journal of the Royal Society of 
>Medicine, v 182, 519-523.
>
>No precursor genetically nearly identical to HIV-1 has been found in any 
>other species.  The nucleotide sequence of HIV-1 is little closer to 
>HIV-2 than it is to the naturally occurring primate lentiviruses of 
>green monkeys, mangabeys and mandrils.  It is possible that a naturally 
>occurring lentivirus much closer genetically to HIV-1 may yet be 
    [much deleted]
>************************************************************************
>Reference is made to "A Conspiracy of Cells."  Michael Gold (1986) State 
>University of New York Press, Albany.  
    [deleted: HeLa (human cervical carcinoma cells) readily
     contaminate (and out-grow) cell cultures]
>************************************************************************
>The following is from "Persistent Infection of Human Carcinoma and 
>Primary Check Embryo Cell Cultures with Simian Virus 40."  Bernice E. 
>Eddy et al (1962) Proceedings of Society for Exerimental Biology and Medicine, 
  [deleted: title says it all - SV40 can induce persistent infection in
   HeLa and other]
>************************************************************************
>Billi's Comments:
>
>The main criticisms to Elswood and Stricker's Origin of Aids theory, as 
>propagated by Tom Curtis in Rolling Stone and elsewhere were twofold:
>(1) How could one infected monkey infect other monkeys when they were 
>"gangcaged? and (2) How could SIV become HIV-1 in such a short time--
>1960 to the present since the genetic sequencing was only 40-50% 
>comparable.  
>
>The first criticism could be answered by researchers drawing blood 
>samples from the "imprisoned" monkeys and using contaminated syringes 
>and needles.  [.....]
>
>Now for the second criticism.  If, for some reason, the culture of 
>monkey kidney cells used by Koprowsky et al. to prepare the polio 
>vaccine were contaminated by HeLa cell(s), there would be unlimited cell 
>proliferation.  Considering the stated ability of SIV/HIV and SV40 to 
>mutate upon replication, it would be quite feasible that genetically 
>comparable SIV would soon be obtained.  The SIV/HIV species barrier was, 
>in all probability, crossed thanks to HeLa cell contamination of polio 
>kidney cultures.
>
   According to this hypothesis, shouldn't HIV carry significant 
segments of SV40 genetic material? These sequences are all in
the GenBank repository for the interested to check.
    Or is the hypothesis simply that SV40-infected HeLa cells are
'general accelerators' of viral mutation?

Another key point in this hypothesis is that SIV can infect
(SV40-infected) HeLa. Can it? I would have thought the search for HIV
would have been much easier if the virus was so promiscuous as to
be able to (superinfect) cells such as HeLa. I find it difficult
to imagine how HIV, with it's apparently narrow range of preferred
host cell type (CD4+ Tcells, macrophage lineage, and ...) could
have come thru HeLa adenocarcinoma cells.
     Furthermore, can polio and SIV (and HIV) _superinfect_ (HeLa)
cells? Many known viruses cannot superinfect. It is possible that 
cultures _persistently_ infected with SV40 _and_ SIV->HIV would
be lousy cultures for vaccine production.

>New cells would not have to be added to these cultures thanks to the 
>immortalization of the monkey cultures by HeLa cells.  
   Surely this would have been noticed by the vaccine makers, *if*
they kept a continuous 'seed' cell culture. From the context of the
previous weeks' discussions, I was under the impression that *primary*
monkey kidney cell lines were used for vaccine production. After 
mincing/dissociating the tissue, it would be infected with polio, and
harvested, say, 24 hours later (polio is a fast, lytic virus with about
a 7-16-hour life cycle, if I remember correctly). What would be left
after growing polio would be cell garbage, since it's easy to raise 
astronomical titers of polio. There would be nothing left to
keep after growing polio in a culture - you'd have to start 
over. If you assumed your culture contained only primary monkey kidney
tissue, nothing else, then wouldn't you just blow the whole cell 
culture on a single round of virus production, and not save anything for
extended periods?

    I find the current debate interesting, and honesty don't have an
*intellectual/scientific* stake in how it turns out. The questions above
suggest that it is an awfully long shot to put SV40 and SIV and HIV and
Polio together in the scenario as outlined.

   What is sorely lacking in these various discussions is an authoritative
description of exactly how polio vaccine was produced - how the primary
kidney cell cultures were carried, infected, harvested, etc. Suggestions
gratefully accepted if anyone knows of general review articles; this stuff's
a bit old for most of MedLine.

--Bob
rms@acsu.buffalo.edu      "opinions are mine, not SUNY Bflo's"
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids