Detectionof reverse transcriptase activity in live attenuated virus vaccines.

Background: Safety considerations require that biological products for human use are free from any agent that might pose a potential health hazard. One method to detect the presence of retroviral particles is the reverse transcriptase (RT) assay. This assay is capable of detecting all infectious retrovirus particles, irrespective of genome or protein composition.

[Diagnosis of hepatitis B: is the additional demonstration of viral genome of a prognostic value?].

HBV markers were tested in sera of patients with various clinical and serological states of HBV infection, including patients with delta-infection, and were compared to the detection of HBV-DNA in the sera by hybridization. The results show that high levels of HBV-DNA (much greater than 100 pg/0.1 ml) are mainly found in sera of patients with chronic hepatitis or in early sera of HBs antigen carriers, while 17 of 20 patients with undetectable or trace amounts of DNA in early sera exhibited a self-limiting hepatitis infection.

Isolation of human pathogenic viruses from clinical material on CaCo2 cells.

The use of the epidermal-like cell line CaCo2 and the efficient propagation of viruses from clinical material for diagnostic purposes are reported. Virus replication was observed by cytopathic effects and/or immunofluorescence. The following viruses replicate in CaCo2 cells: enteroviruses (coxsackie B1-B6, poliovirus types 1-3, most echoviruses and coxsackie A viruses), adenoviruses, herpes simplex types 1 and 2, measles, respiratory syncytial, parainfluenza type 2 viruses, and to a lesser extent rubella and mumps viruses.

Cross-reactions of immunoglobulin M and G antibodies with enterovirus-specific viral structural proteins.

We analysed the reactivity of enterovirus-specific human IgM and IgG antibodies with the structural proteins of different enteroviruses by the immunoblot technique. In general, all immunoglobulin G antibodies of the tested sera reacted with capsid polypeptide VP 1 of the viruses tested (echoviruses 9 and 11, coxsackievirus B3 and poliovirus 2). In contrast, enterovirus specific immunoglobulin M antibodies of adults reacted with capsid polypeptides VP 1, VP 2, and/or VP 3 of the viruses mentioned above.