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Characteristics of a Virus Isolated from Hodgkin's Disease Lymph Nodes^*

( Department of Pathology, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco 22, Calif.)

Hodgkin's disease and control human lymph node tissues have been studied and compared by intracerebral serial inoculations into suckling mice. After five to seven blind passages, a viral agent was detected in three cases of Hodgkin's disease, two of which have been maintained and studied. Although the same mouse strain and technics were used in control material, no agent was encountered in it.

The viruses isolated from the Hodgkin's disease tissues produced a fatal encephalitis, manifest 7–10 days after inoculation. Only intracerebral injections were effective in the initially isolated strain. Intraperitoneal and intramuscular routes were not effective. After seventeen serial intracerebral passages in mice it became adapted to intraperitoneal transfer.

Microscopically, the lesion was a diffuse severe encephalitis demonstrating, for the most part, a round-cell response. The spinal cord was also affected diffusely, so that the clinical symptoms were ataxia, flaccid paralysis, and death. Complete microscopic examination failed to reveal inflammation in muscles, fat, liver, pancreas, lungs, kidneys, etc.

The agent was inactivated at 56° C. in 30 minutes and was resistant to ether. It produced no discernible lesions in chicken eggs or in tissue culture. Complement-fixing antibodies could be produced in immunized rabbits and, with difficulty, in young adult mice. No neutralizing antibodies have been produced in these animals. Human Hodgkin's disease and control sera have not been found to possess complement-fixing antibodies. Commercial human immune globulin possessed neutralizing ability.

A great effort has been made to rule out the possibility that the isolated agents may represent examples of latent mouse or chicken virus. It is felt that the agent is a new type of virus which has truly been isolated from human Hodgkin's disease lymph node tissues. The direct relationship of this virus to Hodgkin's disease must be further clarified and will be the immediate object of further research.

^* This investigation has been supported by the Dorothy H. and Lewis Rosenstiel Foundation and was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Karl F. Meyer, George Williams Hooper Foundation, University of California, San Francisco.

Received 3/30/55.