Temperature-sensitive Mutants of Adenovirus defective in Interferon Induction at Non-permissive Temperature

Abstract

SEVERAL different types of human adenoviruses induce interferon in chick embryo cells^1,2 and it has been proposed that the penton antigen of the virus is responsible for this¹. The evidence supporting this hypothesis, however, depends chiefly on sensitivity to trypsin, and in our opinion the adenovirus functions responsible for inducing interferon have not been clearly identified. We have isolated temperature-sensitive (ts) mutants of adenovirus type 5³, which provided us with a possible system for identifying these functions. With this view in mind, we have tested ten ts mutants, classified into nine complementation groups⁴, for their ability to induce interferon in chick embryo cells at both the permissive (31° C) and non-permissive (38° C) temperatures. This brief communication presents evidence that two of these mutants, which complement each other in their ts functions, do not induce interferon at the non-permissive temperature, but induce it at the permissive temperature.