Jpn. J. Infect. Dis., 54 (1), 36-38, 2001

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Laboratory and Epidemiology Communications

The Isolation of Human Parechovirus 1 from Cases of Acute Respiratory Illness in Children

Shinichi Takao*, Shinji Fukuda, Yukie Shimazu, Masahiro Noda
and Shizuyo Tokumoto

Division of Microbiology II, Hiroshima Prefectural Institute of Health
and Environment, Minami-machi 1-6-29, Minami-ku, Hiroshima 734-0007

Communicated by Hiroo Inouye

(Accepted April 3, 2001)

Picornaviridae is a large family of single-strand positive-sense RNA viruses that includes a number of important human and animal pathogens (1). Until recently, picornaviruses were classified into five genera, but two former enteroviruses (echovirus 22 and 23) have now been placed in a new genus, Parechovirus, and renamed human parechovirus 1 and 2 (HPEV1 and 2), respectively, because of their unique molecular and biological properties (2,3). Previous studies have shown that in most cases HPEV1 causes infections of the gastrointestinal or respiratory tract, and in rare cases can cause encephalitis (1). Although earlier studies have shown that HPEV1 is a common human pathogen and that infection with this virus occurs early in life (1,4,5), the isolations of this virus were less frequent than those of other enteroviruses (6). In this paper, we report 14 cases of acute respiratory infections caused by HPEV1.

From September 1999 to December 2000, a total of 2,257 clinical specimens (nasopharyngeal swabs: 1,803, cerebrospinal fluids: 201, stools: 179, urine: 38, others: 36) were collected from 2,105 mostly pediatric patients (93.6% of cases) aged 0-12 years for the purpose of virological surveillance in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. From the specimens, a total of 709 viruses were isolated in cell cultures and/or detected by viral antigen-specific EIA, electron microscopy, or viral genome-specific RT-PCR (Table 1). In the virus-positive specimens shown in Table 1, HPEV1 was isolated sporadically from 14 patients. All the patients were infants aged under 2-years-old and showed upper or lower respiratory illness with fever, and diarrhea was noted in two patients (Cases No.4 and 13) (Table 2). Interestingly, all of the HPEV1 isolates were isolated by using BGM (buffalo green monkey kidney) cells as shown in Table 2. In a previous study, Birenbaum et al. reported that BGM cells are susceptible for the growth of HPEV1 (7), and our present findings confirmed that BGM cells were suitable for HPEV1 isolation. In addition, BGM cells are sensitive for coxsackieviruses (8,9). Thus, BGM cells might be a useful cell line for virological surveillance.

REFERENCES

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  7. Birenbaum, E., Handsher, R., Kuint, J., Dagan, R., Raichman, B, Mendelson, E. and Linder, N. (1997): Echovirus type 22 outbreak associated with gastrointestinal disease in a neonatal intensive care unit. Am. J. Perinatol., 14, 469-473.
  8. Kok, T., Pryor, T. and Payne, L. (1998): Comparison of rhabdomyosarcoma, buffalo green monkey kidney epithelial, A549 (human lung epithelial) cells and human embryonic lung fibroblasts for isolation of enteroviruses for clinical specimens. J. Clin. Virol., 24, 61-65.
  9. Menegus, M.A. and Hollick, G.E. (1982): Increased efficiency of group B coxsackievirus isolation from clinical specimens by use of BGM cells. J. Clin. Microbiol., 15, 945-948.



* Corresponding author: Fax: +81-82-252-8642, E-mail: takao@urban.ne.jp


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