Laboratory efforts to cultivate noroviruses

Porcine enteric caliciviruses: Genetic and antigenic relatedness to human caliciviruses, diagnosis and epidemiology

“…Most recently, reverse genetic systems were generated for the porcine Cowden SaV and the human Norwalk NoV, in which infectious viral particles were rescued after replication of the viral genomic RNA [35,36]. In spite of these advances, most NoVs and SaVs remain refractory to growth in cell culture and extensive efforts to propagate them in vitro have failed [37]. Animal models that mimic the diarrheal disease seen in humans are lacking, but a gnotobiotic pig model for human NoV has recently been described [38].…”

Apparently non-specific results found using a norovirus antigen immunoassay for fecal specimens from neonates

“…Currently, norovirus (NoV) is thought to be responsible for 13-30% of episodes of viral gastroenteritis, particularly in hospitals or nursing homes. [1][2][3] As attempts to produce viral cultures have been unsuccessful, 4 development and assessment of diagnostic methods aimed at detecting norovirus have proven difficult and require electron microscopy or reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), 5,6,8 for which specificity and sensitivity have been reported to be at 98.0% and 58.3% and 92.4% and 94.1%, respectively. 5 In 2001, an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) has become commercially available and is intended to facilitate diagnosis of this viral infection.…”

Identification of a novel cellular target and a co-factor for norovirus infection – B cells & commensal bacteria

“…Since the discovery of the first HuNoV over 40 y ago by Kapikian et al, 11 extensive efforts have been undertaken to culture these viruses Keywords: enteric virus, histo-blood group antigen, intestinal microbiota, norovirus in epithelial cells including IECs but thus far no published and reproducible data support infection of this cell type in vitro. 12 Murine NoVs (MuNoVs) efficiently and lytically replicate in macrophages and dendritic cells 13 but efforts to infect these cell types with HuNoVs in culture have been unsuccessful. 14 Several observations by our lab and other research groups led us to speculate that B cells represent another NoV target.…”