Isolation of human rotaviruses in primary cultures of monkey kidney cells

We succeeded in isolating human rotaviruses from the feces of gastroenteritis patients by using roller cultures of primary cynomolgus monkey kidney cells with trypsin in the maintenance medium but without concentration and trypsin treatment of the inocula at each passage level. These cells were found to be more sensitive than MA-104 cells (derived from fetal rhesus monkey kidney) for the propagation of human rotaviruses. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of the genome RNA revealed that there were small differences in the migration pattern of the segments among all the strains isolated from 1976 to 1981. The cultivation of human rotaviruses in primary cell cultures might aid in developing a liver rotavirus vaccine.