Characterization of fastidious adenovirus types 40 and 41 by DNA restriction enzyme analysis and by neutralizing monoclonal antibodies.

The DNA of 48 strains of adenovirus type 40 (Ad40) and of 128 strains of adenovirus type 41 (Ad41), isolated between 1971 and 1986 from various countries, was characterized by restriction enzyme analysis using nine and ten restriction endonucleases respectively. Five new DNA variants of Ad40 and 18 new DNA variants of Ad41 were detected. Most of the restriction sites which differed among the various DNA variants appeared to be distributed at random over the entire length of the viral genomes of the two serotypes. The number of restriction sites by which two DNA variants differed from each other was used as a measure of their relatedness. Several clusters of closely related DNA variants were observed for each of the two serotypes. The 35 DNA variants of Ad40 and Ad41 were used to test monoclonal antibody preparations for their range of reactivity in a neutralization assay. One monoclonal antibody (5-8), raised against Ad40 strain Dugan, showed type-specific neutralization of all 11 Ad40 DNA variants tested. Six monoclonal antibodies, raised against Ad41 strain Tak, neutralized different proportions of the variants of Ad41. Two of these preparations (1-21 and 3-19) neutralized all 24 Ad41 DNA variants, while a third (1-23) reacted with only 12 Ad41 variants. Three other monoclonal antibody preparations (3-10, 3-18, 7-14) reacted specifically with only 6 of these 12 variants. The patterns of reactivity with the monoclonal antibody preparations correlated with the presence or absence of a HindIII restriction site at 56 map units and of an EcoRI restriction site at 52 map units on the Ad41 DNA. This region of the adenovirus DNA codes for the hexon protein, which is known to contain the type-specific neutralizing antigenic determinants.