Cytopathogenic Agent Resembling Human Salivary Gland Virus Recovered from Tissue Cultures of Human Adenoids

Abstract

Smith (1) recovered a cytopathogenic virus from a human salivary gland demonstrating intranuclear inclusions characteristic of the human salivary gland virus. Subsequently, Weller(2) isolated a similar virus from a liver biopsy from an infant with a clinical diagnosis of cytomegalic inclusion disease. During the course of studies in this laboratory of the presence of adenoidal-pharyngeal-conjunctival (APC) viruses(3-5) in human adenoids, 3 strains of an intranuclear inclusion body-producing virus were isolated from adenoid tissue cultures in which the fibroblasts underwent spontaneous degeneration. This report describes some of the properties of the virus, the development of a complement fixation .test, and the serological relationship of this yirus to the strains isolated by Smith and Weller.Materials and methods. Adenoids were obtained from children undergoing tonsillectomy-adenoidectomy at the Children's Hospital, Washington, D.C., and the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health. Roller tube cultures of adenoids and em'bryonic tissues were prepared as described previously(3). Trypsin-dispersed cultures of human fibroblasts were prepared from embryonic skin-muscle, using a modification of the Youngner procedure(6). These cells were maintained in serial passage by Microbiological Associates Inc., Bethesda, Md., from whom the majority of cultures were obtained. The cells were grown directly on glass in stationary 'tubes and 32 oz. bottles, using a growth medium consisting of 10% to 20% human serum in Eagle's basal medium (7). Prior to inoculation, the cultures were washed four times with Eagle's medium and changed to a maintenance medium consisting of 5% horse serum in Eagle's medium; tube and bottle culttures received 1.0 and 40.0 ml respectively.