NONACID-FAST BACTERIA AND HeLa CELLS: THEIR UPTAKE AND SUBSEQUENT INTRACELLULAR GROWTH
Abstract
Receive: RSS Feeds, eTOCs, free email alerts (when new articles cite this article), more» Information about commercial reprint orders: http://jb.asm.org/site/misc/reprints.xhtml To subscribe to to another ASM Journal go to: http://journals.asm.org/site/subscriptions/ C. C. Communicable Disease Center, Public Health Service, United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Montgomery, Alabama Received for publication November 6, 1958 The growth of bacteria in cells requires first that they gain access to the cell. In the intact animal, bacteria are taken up by cells with natural phagocytic activity, the polymorphonuclear leucocytes and monocytes. Cells of the more convenient tissue culture systems of human cells, such as HeLa cells, do not normally take in bacteria when commonly used tissue culture media are employed. Fortunately, HeLa cells do take up bacteria when the appropriate serum is used in the tissue culture medium. Certain horse sera promote the uptake of mycobacteria and carbon particles (, 1955, 1957a), and guinea pig serum enhances the phagocytosis of Histoplasma capsulatum (Larsh and , 1958). The control exercised by serum constituent of the tissue culture medium is seen again in the present study, which is concerned with HeLa cells and several species of nonacid-fast bacteria. The bacteria chosen for study