Development of an inactivated rotavirus vaccine.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Rotavirus has been shown to be the single most important etiological agent of severe diarrhea of infants and young children in both developed and developing countries. We have planned (1) to select an optimal combination of a human rotaviurs strain and a cell substrate suitable for vaccine production, (2) to adapt the selected virus in a large scale cell culture system, and (3) to establish purification and inactivation methods in an attempt to develop an inactivated rotavirus vaccine. We have selected the AU64n strain, a naturally-occurring single VP7 gene substitution reassortant, because this strain was previously shown to possess VP7 and VP4 antigens prevalent in human rotaviruses circulating among children. The AU64n strain was isolated in African Green Monkey Kidney cells and then adapted to grow in Vero CL-9, a cloned-derivative of Vero cells. The infectious titer reached 107 pfu/ml which corresponds to ca 15 ug/ml of virus protein. Purified virus preparations were obtained at a recovery of 20% and inactivated with formaldehyde apparently without reducing its immunogenicity. This study founded a firm basis for the development of an inactivated vaccine.