Adaptation of hepatitis A virus to high titre growth in diploid and permanent cell cultures.

A hepatitis A virus isolate originally obtained from the feces of a clinically ill patient and passaged in diploid human embryonic kidney and lung cells was adapted to grow in MRC-5, Cercopithecus aethiops muscle and in Vero cells. Three different adaptation methods were applied. Either method proved to be suitable to finally give high virus titres of cell-bound as well as cell-free virus in the supernatant of infected cultures during 10 to 15 passages. An easily performable immunoperoxidase staining method was used for the titration of hepatitis A virus in microtitre plates. Cytopathogenic changes in MRC-5 cell cultures infected with fully adapted virus are described.