Cultivation and subgroup determination of human rotaviruses from Egyptian infants and young children.

Primary African green monkey kidney cells were more sensitive than primary cynomolgus monkey kidney and MA104 cells for supporting the growth of human rotaviruses detected in diarrheal stools of Egyptian infants and young children. In attempts to characterize these Egyptian rotaviruses, only 31% of the strains tested in the form of fecal suspensions were identified as subgroup 1 or 2. After one passage in African green monkey kidney cells, 80% of the strains were identified as subgroup 1 or 2. Of these 43 rotaviruses for which the subgroup was determined, 28% were subgroup 1 and 72% were subgroup 2. Thus, cultivation in African green monkey kidney cell cultures facilitated the antigenic characterization of rotaviruses by subgrouping; cultivation also represents an initial step in determining serotype and in developing potential vaccine candidates.