The Behavior of Influenza Viruses in Various Tissue Culture Systems

Abstract

Comparison of the growth characteristics of first and twelfth monkey kidney (MK) passaged influenza B in the same type of culture indicated that adaptation had taken place after passage. However, the growth of an egg-adapted influenza B, Lee, showed a much lesser degree of adaptation for MK cells than the first passaged virus which had been isolated directly from man. Both MK and egg lines of influenza B agglutinated human type O, fowl, and monkey erythrocytes in a similar manner. With sheep erythrocytes titers of agglutination by the egg-adapted virus were significantly greater than by the MK line. Attempts to propagate influenza A or B in cultures of conjunctival, fibroblast, KB, HeLa or embryonic skin, all of human origin, were uniformly unsuccessful regardless of amount of virus inoculated or previous passage history. Growth of influenza C could not be demonstrated in any of these cells nor in cultures of human embryo lung (HEL), human embryo kidney (HEK), or MK. Evidence of growth of influenza A and B with increments in hemagglutinating and infectious virus as well as cytopathogenic effects in cultures of bovine embryo kidney (BEK) has been presented.