Induction of diarrhea in colostrum-deprived newborn rhesus monkeys with the human reovirus-like agent of infantile gastroenteritis

Abstract

Diarrhea developed in five newborn rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) inoculated orally on the first day of life with the human reovirus-like agent of infantile gastroenteritis. Incubation period ranged from 2-5 days; virus particles were detected in stools in association with illness, and virus shedding lasted between 1 and 3 days. Virus derived from monkeys that developed illness following inoculation was infectious for other monkeys but did not induce diarrhea which could be associated temporally with virus shedding. Viral antigens were also detected in tissues of the grossly abnormal small intestine of an acutely-ill monkey. Serum antibody responses were demonstrated in two of the ill animals by complement-fixation and/or immunofluorescence.

Experimental Group A Rotaviral Infection in Cynomolgus Monkeys Raised on Formula Diet

“…However, it was observed that only 1 of 4 animals without antibody response seroconverted when the sera of the monkeys were reexamined for antibodies at 2 to 3 months after viral inoculation. In an earlier study of rotaviral infection in rhesus monkeys, low seroconversion rate was also reported even though the sera were collected up to 6 months postinoculation (13). As very young monkeys were used in the present study as well as the earlier study, the poor seroconversion rate might be due to the relative immaturity of the immune system in some of the animals.…”

“…Although a number of studies were carried out using non-primates (8,(10)(11)(12), monkeys might be better models for studying human rotaviral gastroenteritis as they are phylogenetically closer to humans. Experimental rotaviral infection with diarrhea was reported to occur in newborn rhesus monkeys reared by formula-feeding for 24 hr after delivery (13). Other similar studies used baboons and cynomolgus monkeys nursed by their mothers for the entire duration of the experiments (3,6).…”

Development of a Rotavirus-Shedding Model in Rhesus Macaques, Using a Homologous Wild-Type Rotavirus of a New P Genotype

“…Accordingly, many studies on the pathogenesis of and immunity to such agents have been performed with nonhuman primates. Very few studies, however, have been conducted with rotavirus in any nonhuman primate species (21,23,26,31,36,41,55). A major limitation for performing such studies has been the absence of a challenge strain of simian rotavirus that will consistently result in productive infections in a nonhuman primate species after oral challenge.…”

“…Although several rotavirus challenge studies have been conducted with these animals, the first of which was reported in 1976 (55), very little is known about rotavirus infections in any nonhuman primate species. Several investigators have reported that oral inoculation of different nonhuman primates, including several types of monkeys as well as baboons, with either culture-adapted simian (SA11) or human (Wa) rotavirus or fecal preparations of human rotaviruses, will cause diarrheal illness in most animals during their first week of life (21,23,26,31,36,41,55). However, after that time, essentially no illness was observed, and most of the older animals neither shed virus nor seroconverted.…”

The Clinical Response of Gnotobiotic Calves, Pigs and Lambs to Inoculation With Human, Calf, Pig and Foal Rotavirus Isolates

“…In gnotobiotic piglets, calf rotavirus was reported to cause diarrhoea (Woode et al, 1976), whereas a foal rotavirus isolate produced only a subclinieal infection (Tzipori and Walker, 1978). However, in the experiments mentioned above only a limited number of isolates was tested in a small number of newborn animals kept in isolation and often inoculated intraduodenally (Mebus et al, 1977;Mitchell et al, 1977) or with nasogastric tubing (Davidson et al, 1977;Wyatt et al, 1976). It still remains to be determined, therefore, whether the ability to infect more than one animal species is a property of only a few individual rotavirus isolates or whether it is a characteristic of most or all rotavirus isolates occurring naturally.…”