[Morphological makeup of the structures containing HBsAg in the blood of acute and chronic serum hepatitis patients].

Immune electron microscopy was used to examine the morphological composition of HBsAg-containing structures in 20 patients with acute serum hepatitis (ASH) and severe accompanying disease in whom HBsAg had been detected by the gel precipitation test for a long time, and in 7 patients with HBsAg-positive chronic active hepatitis (CAH) developing after ASH. Small spherical particles were the predominant form of HBsAg-containing structures in all the sera. Among ASH patients, a significant number of tubular forms and Dane particles were detected mainly in patients with severe accompanying diseases.

[Use of immune electron microscopy for detecting the hepatitis A virus].

Attempts were made to isolate and identify hepatitis A virus by the method of immune electron microscopy using also biophysical methods and the transfection procedure of cell cultures by nucleic acid preparations. In fecal specimens from patients with infectious hepatitis A, virus-like particles 25-30 nm in diameter were found which reacted with convalescent antisera and could be detected by the immune electron microscopy method. By the same method virus-like particles 22-25 nm in diameter were detected in the blood serum of the patients collected early in the disease.