Differences in bovine parainfluenza 3 virus variants studied by monoclonal antibodies against viral glycoproteins.

We previously showed that of three bovine parainfluenza 3 virus strains the M strain, which is neurovirulent for young mice, has an extensive syncytium-inducing activity, whereas avirulent SC and 910N strains are weak in this activity. It was also demonstrated that both M and SC strains have very low hemagglutination and neuraminidase activities, while the 910N strain shows these activities to high levels. In the present study, monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) were raised against the glycoproteins of the 910N strain, and utilized to further characterize these three viral strains. Five Mabs against the hemagglutinin-neuraminidase protein, which were classified into four different epitope-recognizing groups, neutralized the M strain much more effectively than the 910N and SC strains, while the Mabs showed lower hemagglutination inhibition (HI) titers against the M and SC strains than the 910N strain. Three Mabs against the fusion protein neutralized the M strain but not the 910N and SC strains, while they showed no HI activity against any of these strains. These findings suggested that the M strain is considerably different from other strains in the structure of the viral envelope proteins.