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Infection of Aedes albopictus cells with Semliki Forest virus (SFV) leads to polykaryocyte formation below pH 6.2. This syncytium formation is accompanied by a decrease of the cellular ATP level. Addition of inhibitors of oxidative phosphorylation leads to a rapid, total depletion of ATP in infected cells at pH 6 and results in an inhibition of polykaryocyte formation. However, when cells were exposed for only a few minutes to pH 6 in the presence of the inhibitors and then kept at pH 7.2, the ATP level partially recovered to values sufficient for syncytium formation. Similar results were obtained after ATP depletion induced by 2-deoxyglucose. Thus, it can be concluded that SFV-induced syncytium formation is an ATP-dependent event.

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Semliki Forest virus infected Aedes albopictus cells were used to investigate virus induced cell-cell fusion. It was shown by a novel method that cell-cell fusion was completed within approximately 5 minutes after triggering the fusion event by low pH. This method consists of fixing fusing cells with glutaraldehyde and microinjecting the highly fluorescent and rapidly diffusing dye Lucifer yellow. In contrast, polykaryon formation, the usually used criterion to measure cell-cell fusion occurred only within 30 minutes. Furthermore, it was shown that potassium cyanide, a potent inhibitor of polykaryon formation in the described system, inhibits an early step of membrane-membrane fusion of neighbouring cells.