Use of high-speed rolling to detect respiratory syncytial virus in cell culture

We examined the effect of motion on respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) growth in cell culture. Infected cultures were incubated stationary, rolling, or on an orbital shaker. Enzyme immunoassay (EIA) results for cultures infected with high concentrations of a laboratory strain of RSV were similar for all incubation conditions. However, cultures infected with low concentrations of virus and rolled at 96 rpm had a significantly greater mean EIA optical density (1.78 +/- 0.22) than cultures rolled at 2 rpm (1.42 +/- 0.08) (P less than 0.05). The mean EIA optical density of high-speed-rolled cultures was also significantly greater than for cultures on an orbital shaker (1.25 +/- 0.08) or for stationary cultures (0.21 +/- 0.17) (P less than 0.01). The amount of virus measured by EIA from cultures infected with clinical specimens was also found to be significantly greater at 96 rpm than for stationary cultures. Cultures infected with cell culture isolates were detected significantly earlier at 96 rpm than when stationary. We suggest that high-speed-rolling can be used to enhance the detection of RSV in clinical specimens, especially if the virus is present in low concentrations.