JuneD. Almeida

NEW ANTIGEN-ANTIBODY SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA-ANTIGEN-POSITIVE HEPATITIS

After detergent treatment the 42 nm. Dane particles from the sera of patients with serum hepatitis separate into an outer coat of Australia antigen (Au-Ag) and an inner spherical 27 nm. diameter component resembling a rhinovirus. Antibody in post-hepatitic serum reacted with the inner component (but not with the outer) to yield aggregates resembling those seen in the liver of patients with serum hepatitis. Antibody to Au-Ag was not detected, before or after the attack of hepatitis. It is suggested that, in an attack of serum hepatitis, Au-Ag antibody develops but is subsequently cleared; antibody against the inner Dane component, however, persists.

Formation of virosomes from influenza subunits and liposomes.

The surface haemagglutinin and neuraminidase projections of influenza virus were removed from the viral envelope, purified, and relocated on the surface of unilamellar liposomes. The resulting structures were examined in the electron microscope and found to resemble the original virus. Units of both the viral haemagglutinin and viral neuraminidase could be discerned. The name virosome is proposed for these new bodies.

MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RUBELLA VIRUS

Abstract Antigen-antibody complexes were used to define and display rubella virus by means of electron microscopy. The virus particles ranged in size between 500 and 750Aand appeared to be ragged, with an amorphous pleomorphic envelope and an internal spherical component.

Structures associated with leptospires possibly relevant to the Marburg agent.

Abstract Cultures of Leptospira, when examined by negative staining in the electron microscope, were found to contain tubular structures which, although slightly, but probably not significantly, smaller, are very similar to those seen in preparations of the Marburg agent. It is perhaps fortuitous that patients infected with the Marburg agent had a clinical picture which was at first sight suggestive of a leptospiral infection, but no Leptospira has been implicated, and it is not suggested that the Marburg monkey disease can be explained in terms of a simple leptospiral infection. The biological relationship between the tubular structures and the leptospires themselves is not yet defined; a complicating factor is that both the Marburg agent and the tubular structures closely resemble the vesicular-stomatitis/rabies group of viruses.