INHIBITORY EFFECT OF PARVOVIRUS H-1 ON CULTURED HUMAN TUMOUR CELLS OR TRANSFORMED CELLS

The present study establishes the in vitro system for studying the oncosuppression activity of par-vovirus and discovers that parvovirus H-I can be grown cytolytically in various human cancer cell lines,which include 4 hepatoma cell lines (QGY--7703, SMMC--7721, Bel--7402, PLC/PRF/5), 3 gastric can-cer cell lines (SGC-7901, MGC-80-3, MKN-28) and 1 naspharynx cancer cell line (CNE). The growth oftwo primary gastric cancer cell cultures from surgical cancer tissue were also inhibited by the infectionof H-I. The sensitivity of cancer cells to H-I may relate to their differentiation states. On the con-trary, H-I can neither be grown cytolytically in normal liver or stomach cells, nor inhibit their growth.Transformation of human skin fibroblasts with Simian Virus 40 activated their sensitivity to H-I. Ourresults thus indicate that the antineoplastic activity of H-I in vivo involves at least its direct inhibit-ing or killing malignant cells.