Isolation in Tissue Culture of an Interfering Agent from Patients with Rubella. ∗

Summary

The technic first described by Buescher and Parkman for isolation of an agent from patients with rubella was used in a study of 7 university students affected with this disease. 1. Agents which interfered with ECHO 11 in primary or continuous grivet monkey kidney cells or in a continuous rhesus monkey kidney cell line (LLC-MK₂) were recovered from all patients. 2. The agent was recovered from upper respiratory secretions of all cases and from blood drawn during the acute phase in 4 of 7 patients. 3. Rise in the neutralizing properties of the sera obtained in the convalescent period as compared with the acute sera was a constant feature in all samples tested. 4. The usefulness of the LLC-MK₂ cell line for primary isolation of this agent(s) was proven during this study.