A study of Coxsackie group B viruses with respect to plaque formation and its relationship to other biological properties

Abstract

The application of tissue culture techniques in the study of various biological properties, genetic markers, and the relationships between these markers and animal pathogenicity of polioviruses, has been quite fruitful for many investigators in the last few years. It is very useful to select avirulent strains or vaccine strains and differentiate them from the virulent ones in vitro by using different markers. Since Coxsackie viruses belong to the same family as polioviruses they are similar in their biological and physical properties. Coxsackie viruses can cause serious diseases both in newborns and in adults, and the infections are usually determined by the isolation of the agent through the inoculation of suckling mice, by sign of the disease appearing in the newborn mice, and in the histological sections. The study of Coxsackie viruses, in vitro, has not received enough attention and therefore very little information is available. This study was designed to isolate the plaque variants of Coxsackie group B viruses, especially type B-3, by means of selection under different environments and sources; to study (or characterize) their biological properties both in vivo and in vitro; also to investigate their correlations by applying similar techniques which have been used to study the polioviruses. Excerpt from pages 15-16.