Serial passage in tissue culture of mixed foot-and-mouth disease virus serotypes.

The foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus field specimen SAU/8/88 was previously shown to consist of a mixture of O and Asia 1 serotypes [15]. In this study, plaques representing the O and Asia 1 components isolated from the original epithelial virus suspension were used to construct mixtures of known ratios, and these were serially passaged in tissue culture. After each passage, the ratio of O to Asia 1 virus was calculated. The two virus populations were shown to be cycling through time. This cycling phenomenon has not been described before for FMD virus in tissue culture, but is consistent with current population theory.