Isolation of Intranuclear Inclusion Producing Agents from Infants with Illnesses Resembling Cytomegalic Inclusion Disease.

Abstract

Viruses that produce similar cytopathic changes in vitro characterized by presence of intranuclear inclusions have been isolated from 3 infants during life. The first derived from a liver biopsy from a 3-months-old child (Davis) with microcephaly, persistent jaundice, and hepatosplenomegaly; cytomegalic cells were demonstrated in the liver specimen. From a second child, virus was isolated from a liver biopsy, and on three occasions between the 14th and 91st day of life from the urine. This infant had jaundice and hepatosplenomegaly. More recently, an agent was recovered from the urine of a third infant, who evidenced hepatosplenomegaly, cerebral calcification and chorioretinitis. The Davis strain has been propagated in human fibroblasts for 20 passages during an elapsed period of 494 days. Neutralization tests with the Davis agent have indicated that neutralizing antibodies occur frequently in children with cytomegalic disease but also are not uncommon in normal adults. The agents are apparently related to those recovered in other laboratories from a human salivary gland, from a fatal case of cytomegalic disease, and from spontaneously degenerating tissue cultures of human pharyngeal tonsillar tissue.