Rubella virus: mechanism of attenuation in the vaccine strain (HPV77).

The vaccine type (HPV77 strain) of rubella virus replicates slower and manifests a delayed appearance of cytopathic effect in Vero-76 cells as compared to wild-type virus (M33). The change in cytopathic effect coincides with the delayed appearance of both genomic and subgenomic RNA as well as viral structural proteins in the cell. The delay in the appearance of the viral proteins in the cells was also evident when the cells infected with the vaccine-type virus were treated with the lysosomotropic agent such as chloroquine. Binding studies using [35S]methionine-labeled virus showed that the vaccine-type virus bound to the cells poorly and the binding was not completely competed out with the cold virus.