Antigenic Relationships Among Adenoviruses with Appraisal of Reliability of Complement-Fixation Test for Typing Isolates

Abstract

Strains of type 3, 4 and 7 adenoviruses of widely separated temporal and geographic origin were found to be remarkably homogeneous antigenically within types in serum neutralization and complement-fixation (CF) tests with monotypic rabbit antisera. Antigenic similarity of type 7 adenoviruses was also shown in neutralization tests with paired sera from human volunteers who received monovalent type 7 adenovirus vaccine. Only minor antigenic difference between prototype 7 and 7a viruses was noted and this appeared so slight as to offer little support for the establishment of a type 7a subgroup at this time. Minor antigenic crossing between types was encountered infrequently in the neutralization tests and commonly in the CF tests. There was, however, but little crossing between types 3, 4 and 7 viruses, which are important in epidemic acute respiratory illness, and this caused no difficulty in proper differentiation of types by the CF technique. There was complete agreement between the CF and serum neutralization findings in the typing of 194 newly recovered type 2, 3, 4 or 7 adenoviruses. A procedure for routine typing of type 3, 4 and 7 adenovirus isolates is presented. There is need for further study to develop and evaluate the CF procedure for typing the remaining adenoviruses.