NEUTRALIZING ANTIBODIES TO SV4O IN HUMAN SERA FROM SOUTH INDIA: SEARCH FOR ADDITIONAL HOSTS OF SV40

Abstract

Shah, K. V. (Johns Hopkins Univ. School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, Md. 21205), M. K. Goverdhan and H. L Ozer. Neutralizing antibodies to SV40 in human sera from South India: search for additional hosts of SV40. Amer J Epidem 93: 291–297, 1971.—Neutralizing antibodies to SV40 were detected in 10 of 155 sera of South Indian cancer patients. The donors lived several hundred miles outside the range of the rhesus monkey and gave no history of immunization against poliomyelitis. The protective sera had low neutralizing antibody tilers and did not stain viral or T antigen in fluorescent antibody tests. Radioisotope immunoprecipitation tests confirmed the results of some of the higher titered neutralization test positive human sera from North India. There was no serologic evidence that either of the two most prevalent South Indian monkeys, the bonnet macaque or the langur, was a natural host of SV40.