%0 Journal Article %A Shibahara, Katsuki %A Hotta, Hak %A Katayama, Yuko %A Homma, Morio %T Increased binding activity of measles virus to monkey red blood cells after long-term passage in Vero cell cultures %D 1994 %J Journal of General Virology, %V 75 %N 12 %P 3511-3516 %@ 1465-2099 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/0022-1317-75-12-3511 %I Microbiology Society, %X Recent field isolates of measles virus (MV) obtained by using B95-8 cells have been reported not to agglutinate African green monkey red blood cells (AGM-RBC). Vero cell-adapted, plaque-forming strains derived from three field isolates at the third passage in Vero cell cultures (T8Ve-3, T11Ve-3 and N13Ve-3) also exhibited markedly decreased binding activity, as determined by infectivity-absorption and haemadsorption tests. On the other hand, binding activity of the respective strains at the twentieth passage (T8Ve-20, T11Ve-20 and N13Ve-20) increased to practically the same level as that of the Edmonston strain, a standard strain of MV passaged long-term. A membrane immunofluorescence test revealed that the decreased binding activity to AGM-RBC of T8Ve-3, T11Ve-3 and N13Ve-3 was not due to decreased expression of the haemagglutinin (H) protein on the cell surface. The deduced amino acid sequence of the H protein synthesized in T11Ve-3-infected cells was identical to that in T11Ve-20-infected cells, although a single amino acid alteration was observed when T8Ve-3 was compared with T8Ve-20. Similarly, approximately half of the N13Ve-20-infected cells synthesized an H protein identical to that produced in N13Ve-3-infected cells, and nevertheless, exhibited markedly increased haemadsorption. The present results suggest that a viral protein(s) other than the H protein contributed to the binding activity of MV to AGM-RBC. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/0022-1317-75-12-3511