Growth of Hepatitis A Virus in Murine Cells

In order to see the growth of hepatitis A virus (HAV) in murine cells, L929 cells, an established mouse cell line, were either transfected with the virion RNA or infected with the virions. In the transfected as well as infected cells, development of HAV negative strand RNA was evident by the use of RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction). In addition, infectious HAV was recovered from the transfected cells with an average titre of 10^<1.8> TCID_50 (50% tissue culture infectious dose)/dish, which corresponded to a ratio of 10^<-5.2> to that produced by S.la/Ve-1 cells, a susceptible fused cell line of marmoset liver and Vero cells. Experiment of the virion infection was further extended to that with the other mouse cells and cell lines covering Balb/3T3 clone A31, NIH/3T3, and Swiss/3T3, where NIH/3T3 cells were manifest in the production of HAV negative strand RNA. Some of the murine cells were thus considered to have a full set of cellular machineries for supporting the growth of HAV, though the efficiency of virus growth was extremely low as compared to that in the susceptible primate cells