Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, Jan 1994, 89-94, Vol 1, No. 1
Copyright © 1994 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Neutralizing antibody immune response in children with primary and secondary rotavirus infections

CF Arias, S Lopez, JD Mascarenhas, P Romero, P Cano, YB Gabbay, RB de Freitas and AC Linhares
Departamento de Biologia Molecular, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Cuernavaca, Mexico.

We have characterized the neutralizing antibody immune response to six human rotavirus serotypes (G1 to G4, G8, and G9) in Brazilian children with primary and secondary rotavirus infections and correlated the response with the G serotype of the infecting rotavirus strain. Twenty- five children were studied: 17 had a single rotavirus infection, 4 were reinfected once, and 4 experienced three infections. Two of the reinfections were by non-group A rotaviruses. Among the 25 primary infections, we observed homotypic as well as heterotypic responses; the serotype G1 viruses, which accounted for 13 of these infections, induced mostly a homotypic response, while infections by serotype G2 and G4 viruses induced, in addition to the homotypic, a heterotypic response directed primarily to serotype G1. Two of the primary infections induced heterotypic antibodies to 69M, a serotype G8 virus that by RNA electrophoresis analysis was found not to circulate in the population during the time of the study. The specificity of the neutralizing antibody immune response induced by a virus of a given serotype was the same in primary as well as secondary infections. These results indicate that the heterotypic immune response induced in a primary rotavirus infection is an intrinsic property of the virus strain, and although there seem to be general patterns of serotype- specific seroconversion, these may vary from serotype to serotype and from strain to strain within a serotype.

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Ray, P. G., Kelkar, S. D. (2004). Prevalence of Neutralizing Antibodies against Different Rotavirus Serotypes in Children with Severe Rotavirus-Induced Diarrhea and Their Mothers. CVI 11: 186-194 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
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