Influenza A virus infection of primary differentiated airway epithelial cell cultures derived from Syrian golden hamsters.

The ability of several different influenza A virus strains to infect and replicate in primary, differentiated airway epithelial cell cultures from Syrian golden hamsters was investigated. All virus strains tested replicated equivalently in the cultures and displayed a preference for infecting nonciliated cells. This tropism correlated with the expression of both alpha2,3- and alpha2,6-linked sialic acid on the nonciliated cells. In contrast, the ciliated cells did not have detectable alpha2,6-linked sialic acid and expressed only low amounts of alpha2,3-linked sialic acid. In contrast to clinical isolates, laboratory strains of influenza A virus infected a limited number of ciliated cells at late times post-infection. The presence of alpha2,3- and alpha2,6-linked sialic acid residues on the same cell type suggests that Syrian golden hamsters and differentiated airway epithelial cell cultures derived from hamsters may provide a system for studying the reassortment of influenza A virus strains which utilize different forms of sialic acid as a primary virus receptor.