Studies on the immunogenicities of intertypic chimeric polioviruses

To study the relationship between structure and antigenicity, two hybrid viruses, XF414 and XF3, were constructed. In XF414, N-Agl of PV1 was replaced by N-Agl of PV2; while in XF3, N-Ag1 of PV1 was replaced by N-Ag1 of PV3. In this study, XF414 and XF3 were cultured on a large scale in primary monkey kidney cells. The viruses were concentrated with PEG, purified with chloroform and Sepharose 2B and inactivated with formaldehyde. Their bivalent antigenicity was confirmed by neutralization inhibition test, immunoelectron microscopy, and rabbit immunization. It was also shown that both XF414 and XF3 can elicit bivalent neutralizing antibodies and that the bivalent antigenicities are not destroyed by formaldehyde inactivation. Such a study can provide a basis for the development of multivalent picornavirus vaccines.