Inhibition of virus growth by a toxic factor from asbestos pad and cellulose acetate membrane filters

Our plain-English summary of Inhibition of virus growth by a toxic factor from asbestos pad and cellulose acetate membrane filters, by F. Brown, B. Cartwright, J.F. Newman (Nature, 1965).

The study

• Authors: F. Brown, B. Cartwright, J.F. Newman
• Journal: Nature
• Published: 1965;205:310-1
• Cited by: 6 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Summary of the article

This short communication examined whether a toxic factor from filters used to sterilize cell culture media reduced the growth of foot-and-mouth disease virus. House had recently shown that Eagle's tissue culture medium eluted from asbestos pads a factor toxic to baby hamster kidney (BHK 21) cells. The authors had earlier found that filtering a phosphate-low medium through a Seitz E.K. asbestos pad considerably reduced virus yield. Monolayers of pig kidney cells or baby hamster kidney cells (BHK 21, clone 13) were infected with foot-and-mouth disease virus type C (strain 997) or type O (strain 1). They were then incubated at 37° in medium that was unfiltered or had been filtered through a Seitz E.K. or Ford's 'Sterimat' asbestos pad or through a cellulose acetate (Millipore) membrane. Virus yield was measured mainly by complement fixation and in some experiments by infectivity. Filtration of phosphate-low or Eagle's medium through either asbestos pad considerably reduced virus yield in both cell types. Membrane filtration had no effect in baby hamster kidney cells. In pig kidney cells, however, it gave yields as low as or lower than asbestos filtration. Mixing filtered with unfiltered medium reduced yield considerably, whereas dilution with 0.15 M sodium chloride had only a small effect. This indicated a toxic factor rather than loss of a nutrient. Medium passing first through an asbestos pad inhibited virus growth, but later samples did not. The authors did not examine the nature of the factor. They concluded that care must be exercised when filters are used to sterilize cell culture solutions intended for virus growth.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This 1965 letter reported experiments on whether filtering cell culture medium through asbestos pads affected growth of foot-and-mouth disease virus. The authors noted House's report that culture medium washed a factor toxic to baby hamster kidney cells out of asbestos pads. The authors infected pig kidney and baby hamster kidney cells and incubated them in unfiltered medium or medium filtered through Seitz E.K. or Ford's 'Sterimat' asbestos pads or a cellulose acetate (Millipore) membrane. Asbestos-filtered medium considerably reduced virus yield in both cell types. Eagle's medium filtered through the membrane had no effect in baby hamster kidney cells but cut yields in pig kidney cells as much as or more than asbestos-filtered Eagle's medium. Mixing experiments pointed to a toxic factor rather than a removed nutrient. Medium passing first through a pad inhibited virus growth and later samples did not. The authors did not examine what the factor was. They concluded that care is needed when filters are used to sterilize solutions for virus growth. The study used laboratory cells, not people, and named no asbestos fiber type.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: laboratory cell-culture experiment (short letter)
• Who was studied: Monolayers of pig kidney cells and baby hamster kidney cells (BHK 21, clone 13), infected with foot-and-mouth disease virus type C (strain 997) or a second type printed by the scan as 'type 0 (strain l)'; Animal Virus Research Institute, Pirbright, Surrey; published January 1965
• Exposure: Culture medium (Eagle's medium or a phosphate-low medium) filtered through Seitz E.K. or Ford's 'Sterimat' asbestos pads, or through a cellulose acetate membrane (Millipore), compared with unfiltered medium. 100 ml of medium was filtered through a 5 cm asbestos pad or a 2.5 cm membrane filter. No asbestos fiber type was named.
• Main results:
  • Medium filtered through Seitz or Ford's asbestos pads considerably reduced virus yield in both pig kidney and baby hamster kidney cells.
  • Eagle's medium filtered through a cellulose acetate membrane had no effect on virus yield in baby hamster kidney cells.
  • In pig kidney cells, membrane-filtered Eagle's medium gave virus yields as low as or lower than asbestos-filtered Eagle's medium.
  • Diluting unfiltered Eagle's medium with an equal volume of 0.15 M sodium chloride had only a small effect on virus yield. Diluting it with an equal volume of filtered medium reduced yield considerably, which the authors took to show a toxic factor rather than removal of a nutrient.
  • In successive filtrate samples from one asbestos pad, the first medium through the pad considerably inhibited virus growth and later samples had no inhibitory effect.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that care must be taken when using filters to sterilize cell culture solutions intended for virus growth.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors did not examine the nature of the toxic factor or factors.

Related studies

• Toxicity of cell culture medium due to filtration through asbestos pads — W. House (1964)
• Investigating the interaction of cellulose nanofibers derived from cotton with a sophisticated 3D human lung cell coculture — M.J. Clift, E.J. Foster, et al. (2011)
• Gender differences in murine pulmonary responses elicited by cellulose nanocrystals — A.A. Shvedova, E.R. Kisin, et al. (2016)
• In vivo pulmonary toxicity of cellulose in rats — E. Tátrai, M. Brozik, et al. (1996)
• Tumorigenicity of cellulose fibers injected into the rat peritoneal cavity — R.T. Cullen, B.G. Miller, et al. (2002)
• Comment on Shvedova et al. (2016), "gender differences in murine pulmonary responses elicited by cellulose nanocrystals" — J.A. Shatkin, G. Oberdörster (2016)

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