Abstract
Multiple intraperitoneal injections of high concentrations of reovirus type 3 into weanling mice of the Prince Henry (PH) strain resulted in the development of jaundice in up to 5% of mice of the prototype PH0 strain and up to 40% of mice of the PHi sub-strain.
Electron and light microscope studies indicated that the jaundice was caused by obstruction of the common bile duct at the duodenal end following denudation of the bileduct mucosa. Reovirus was seen replicating in bile-duct mucosal cells 6-8 days after the initial virus inoculation. Infectious reovirus 3 was recovered from bile ducts and other tissues during this period, but virus isolations were negative from bile ducts, livers and spleens when the jaundice became clinically apparent in the third week of the infection.
If a virus were the cause of a similar obstructive jaundice in man, its origin might well be obscured by the difficulty in detecting virus in tissues after the onset of clinical jaundice.