Polykaryocytosis (original) (raw)

  1. Bernard Roizman
  2. Service de Physiologie Microbienne, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 of most, if not all, elementary textbooks of biology describes the cell as the smallest unit of life, consisting of cytoplasm, organelles, one nucleus, all enclosed in a membrane. One well-known exception to this idealized description of the cell is the enucleated erythrocyte. A less familiar exception is the multinucleated cell or polykaryocyte. In animals, polykaryocytes occur in apparently healthy bone and placenta, in tumors, in lesions caused by viruses, minute sterile bodies, chronic infections, and in parthenogenic growth of fowl (Table 1). For nearly a century after they were described by Müller in 1838, there has been much speculation as to their origin, function, and significance. Most of the early work, however, confined itself to polykaryocytes in tuberculosis, in bone, and in tumors. Recent interest in polykaryocytosis has been kindled by the discovery that viruses induce polykaryocytosis, and moreover, that strains of the same virus differ...