Julius A. Kasel

Association of serum anti-neuraminidase antibody with resistance to influenza in man.

Abstract The role of serum anti-neuraminidase antibody in resistance to influenzal illness was investigated by administration of wild-type influenza A/Hong Kong/1968 (H3N2) virus to volunteers who ...

Biological properties of Norwalk agent of acute infectious nonbacterial gastroenteritis.

Summary Acute infectious nonbacterial gastroenteritis was induced in adult volunteers through three serial passages by oral administration of bacteria-free stool filtrates. This suggested that a replicating agent of subbacterial size was responsible for the observed disease. The biophysical properties of the agent, as assayed in volunteers, were consistent with those of a small virus, most closely related to the parvovirus group among known animal viruses. The agent appeared to have a diameter less than 66 nm and likely less than 36 nm. It appeared to lack a lipid containing envelope and was acid stable. It was stable to heating at 60° for 30 min. The agent appeared to be relatively host specific for man and conferred at least short-term immunity. Because of the high frequency of disease induced in unselected volunteers, widespread natural immunity to this agent may be absent or perhaps incomplete. Preliminary evidence suggested that the Norwalk agent replicated in an in vitro system, human fetal intestinal organ culture. We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the volunteers and staff at the Maryland State House of Correction. We also thank Drs. David Fedson and Sheldon Wolff of the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for their help with the study, Dr. Samuel Formal of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Medical Research for performing enterotoxin assays and monkey inoculations, and Dr. Robert Purcell of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases for performing Australia antigen determinations.

Human influenza resulting from aerosol inhalation.

Summary Volunteers were given A2 influenza virus in a small-particle aerosol. Infection and typical influenza resulted from low doses of virus administered in this manner. Low levels of serum neutralizing antibody were not completely effective in preventing infection and illness. The human infectious dose of this influenza strain when administered by aerosol to subjects free of serum neutralizing antibody was approximately 3 TCID50. Gratitude is expressed to Dr. David W. Ailing for assistance with the statistics and in calculating dosages; Mr. Edward W. Harvey, Mr. Irven B. Stacy, Mr. Leonard P. Durocher, and Mr. James Turner for technical assistance; and Mr. Edward P. Derren-bacher aand Mr. Charles O. Masemore for assistance with volunteer inoculations.

Influenza antibody in human respiratory secretions after subcutaneous or respiratory immunization with inactivated virus.

STUDIES with human volunteers have shown that experimental infection with influenza virus is a better stimulus of antibody in respiratory secretions than is subcutaneous immunization with inactivated vaccine, although both procedures result in the production of similar concentrations of serum antibody1,2. The work reported here was undertaken to determine if administration of inactivated virus vaccine through the respiratory tract provokes a similar antibody response in respiratory secretions.

The proteins in nasal secretion: a longitudinal study of the gammaA-globulin, gammaG-globulin, albumin, siderophilin, and total protein concentrations in nasal washings from adult male volunteers.

The long-standing observations that respiratory secretions contain virus-neutralizing substances (1-3) have recently been extended by the demonstration that antibody activity associated with the yA-globulin in nasal secretion may protect against respiratory virus infection (4). Since protection was most clearly seen in individuals with relatively high titers of nasal antibody, and since yA-globulin is known to be selectively accumulated in nasal secretion (5, 6), it seems possible that local concentrations of antibody globulin may be determined by at least two distinct but interrelated processes, 1) those concerned with synthesis of specific immunoglobulin, and 2) those involved in its delivery into the nasal secretions. The present investigation explores mechanisms involved in the delivery of immunoglobulin by examining the relationship between the mucus content and the concentrations of yA-globulin, -yG-globulin, albumin, siderophilin, and total protein in nasal washings from normal volunteers.

The Circulating Lymphocyte—Its Role in Infectious Mononucleosis

Abstract This Combined Clinical Staff Conference presents some of the newer findings in basic biology of the lymphocyte and illustrates how investigational techniques of tissue culture, virology, i...

Immunity to Influenza as Related to Antibody Levels

IN studies of naturally acquired and experimentally induced influenza it has been found that disease occurs in persons with moderate or high serum levels of neutralizing antibody directed against t...

Clinical and Laboratory Studies of Mumps II. Detection and Duration of Excretion of Virus in Urine

Summary 1. Specimens of urine from mumps patients were concentrated by ultra-centrifugation prior to tissue culture inoculation. This concentration resulted in 3 times as many mumps virus isolations as simultaneously tested portions of the same urine prepared by simple dilution. 2. All isolations were made in primary monkey kidney cell cultures; only 2 were made also in simultaneously inoculated HeLa cultures and none were made in HeLa cultures only. 3. Mumps virus was recovered from the urine of each of 13 patients within the first 14 days after onset of salivary gland pain or swelling. Virus was isolated from urine as early as the first and as late as the 14th day of illness. No testing was done beyond the 20th day.

Human influenza: aspects of the immune response to vaccination.

Abstract The studies presented in this Conference illustrate some of the newer aspects of the immune response to infection with influenza virus and vaccination with inactivated vaccines. The predom...

Interferon Production in Cell Lines Derived from Patients with Infectious Mononucleosis

Discussion and Summary In a previous report, it has been shown that biopsy material from patients with Burkitts lymphoma gave rise to continuous cell lines in vitro (4,5). The lines appear to be lymphoid in character, produce interferon, contain a herpes-like virus (6,7) and synthesize immunoglobulins (8). In studying the peripheral leukocytes from patients with heterophile positive acute infectious mononucleosis, we have successfully isolated continuous cell lines in vitro. These lines possess the biological features of continous Burkitt cell lines (1). In these studies an inhibitor present in the established cell suspensions was identified as interferon on the basis of criteria used for the classification of interferons. Recently it has been reported that lymphoblastoid cells derived from fibroblastic elements of bone marrow of patients with infectious mononucleosis produced interferon (9). Although the inducer of interferon synthesis has not been identified, preliminary electron microscopy data in our laboratory indicates the presence of unusual 22 mμ particles in all of the cell lines studied for antiviral activity (10).