Adenovirus Infection of Human Embryo Liver Cells

Abstract

THE viruses of human hepatitis are elusive, but new tissue culture techniques have resulted in a rapid increase of the number and variety of the so-called hepatitis “candidate viruses”, although conclusive proof of their aetiological association with hepatitis is not available. After the isolation in Arizona of the San Carlos agents¹, later identified by neutralization tests as adenovirus type 3, from thirteen of twenty-two Indian children admitted to hospital with infectious hepatitis and from four of thirty-one patients in another outbreak, there has been considerable interest in the possible association of the adenovirus group with hepatitis. Some biological similarities have been found between infectious canine hepatitis virus and certain types of human adenoviruses, and some antigenic relationship to types 2 and 4 (ref. 2). Infectious canine hepatitis (ICH) virus is a DNA virus belonging to the adenovirus group³. Its size of 80 mµ and its 252 capsomeres are identical with that of the adenoviruses. Human infections with ICH virus have been recorded but with no overt signs of hepatitis. Adenovirus type 5 has been isolated from blood clots from twenty-seven of thirty sporadic cases of infectious hepatitis in Arizona⁴. Adenovirus type 5 was also recovered from all of twelve family contacts of two of the patients, three of whom subsequently developed infectious hepatitis.