Serological relatedness of monkeypox, variola, and vaccinia viruses

Abstract

Closely related human and monkey orthopoxviruses were differentiated by serologic techniques. Antiviral sera were tested by immunodiffusion for reactivity against six different viral antigens prepared from either infected cell cultures or infected chorioallantoic membranes (CAMs) of embryonated eggs. Portions of each antiserum were separately absorbed with heterologous antigens from infected CAMs to remove common reactivity. The absorbed sera formed immunodiffusion precipitates with both types of antigen preparation and revealed specific-character differences that made it possible to classify the viruses as variola, vaccinia, or monkeypox. Cross-complement fixation tests were also used to examine the immunologic reactivities of antisera to detergent-treated, purified preparations of three orthopoxviruses. Only common reactivities were detected by this method, however, and differentiating reactivities were not observed.

The virion and soluble antigen proteins of variola, monkeypox, and vaccinia viruses

“…Strains within each group were not differentiated by this technique. Ths differentiation of these poxviruses into a variola, a monkeypox, and a vaccinia species by gel electrophoresis agreed exactly with our previous grouping of these viruses by immunodiffusion techniques with monospecific antisera (Esposito et al, 1977).…”

“…The method for producing variola, vaccinia, and monkeypox antigens and antisera was described in an earlier report (Esposito et al, 1977). Briefly, viral antisera were prepared against each of the poxviruses by injecting rabbits with either infected primary rabbit kidney (PRK) or infected rabbit dermis cell homogenates.…”

Retrospective Analysis of Monkeypox Infection

“…Historically, several serologic techniques have been used to identify orthopoxvirus infections, including hemagglutination-inhibition (13), gel precipitation (17,22,23), complement fi xation (22), cross-neutralization (14), immunofl uorescence (24,25), Western blot (26,27), radioimmunoassay (13,15), and ELISA (28,29). In previous studies, we used a peptide-based ELISA with peptide sequences from the monkeypox B21R gene to differentially diagnose monkeypox infection (6).…”

Studies on the Major Common Precipitating Antigen of Capripoxvirus

“…Reports by other research workers (for review, see Lefevre, 1983) that goat pox antigen and sheep pox antigen produced more precipitation lines with homologous sera than with heterologous sera could not be confirmed using tissue culturederived antigen. Esposito et al (1977) examined the serological relatedness of monkey pox, variola and vaccinia viruses. By adsorbing antisera to one of these orthopoxviruses with a heterologous antigen, they were able to remove common antibodies and leave specific homologous antibodies which could be demonstrated using the AGID test.…”

“…The agar gel immunodiffusion test (AGID) has been used to demonstrate the serological relationship between members of the Orthopoxvirus group (Esposito et al, 1977), the Avipoxvirus group (Uppal & Nilakantan, 1970) and the Capripoxvirus group (Sharma & Dhanda, 1971a;Pandey & Singh, 1972). Sheep and goats that have recovered from capripox infection develop precipitating antibodies that can be detected between 10 and 50 days postinfection (Lefevre, 1983).…”