Three adenovirus type 8 genome types defined by restriction enzyme analysis: prototype stability in geographically separated populations.

Adenovirus type 8 strains were collected over a 19-year period from eye specimens from patients with keratoconjunctivitis. These strains were divided by restriction enzyme analysis with the endonucleases SalI, HindIII, SacI, KpnI, and SmaI into three genotypic subgroups. The prototype strain (Trim) was found throughout the United States from 1966 through 1985 and also in Taiwan and Greece in the early 1980s. Genotype 8C was identified in an arc from Maryland to Missouri to Alabama from 1971 through 1974. Genotype 8D was found only in an epidemic of eye disease among Vietnamese refugees being resettled in northwest Florida in 1975. Genotypes 8C and D were distinct from genotypes 8A and B described from Japan in 1975 through 1981. Hemagglutination tests with a battery of avian and mammalian erythrocytes did not distinguish between the genotypic subgroups. Similarly, the genotypes could not be differentiated by hemagglutination inhibition or serum neutralization tests with reference prototype antisera. The long-term prevalence of the Trim strain suggests that adenovirus type 8 has greater genetic stability than the other adenovirus types studied to date.