A STUDY OF THE ULTRASTRUCTURE OF THE SURFACE OF THE TRANSPLANTABLE LINE VERO CELLS INFECTED WITH THE RABIES VIRUS (RABV, LISSAVIRUS, RHABDOVIRIDAE).

Characteristics of the effect of attenuated rabies virus strain «Moscow 3253¼ on morphological parameters of transplantable line Vero cells were studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Methods based on phase contrast microscopy and immunofluorescence were used to confirm the specificity of interaction and to identify the infectious activity of the rabies virus. Images of intact Vero cells and Vero cells infected with rabies virus were obtained at different periods of cultivation. The character of changes in the cell dimensions (length, width, height) and the cell membrane roughness depending on the rabies virus cultivation time was determined. During the observation period both increases and decreases in the size of the cells were recorded. The size of the infected cells exceeded that of the intact. An increase in the membrane roughness in cells exposed to rabies occurred during the entire period of observation, since the first hours of the interaction of the virus with the cell, while the intact Vero cells exhibited only minor changes in the membrane surface roughness, which were not dependent on the age of the culture. The dependence of the increase in the cell membrane roughness on the infecting dose of the rabies virus was determined. The obtained results open up the prospect of developing a methodological approach to the quantitative in vitro evaluation of the rabies virus using AFM. Changes in the cell membrane roughness appear to be the most indicative parameter for such evaluation.

[Characterization of Vibrio cholerae eltor in the city of Kazan in 2001]. / Kharakteristika kholernykh vibrionov él'tor, vydelennykh v g. Kazan' v 2001 g.

Information on V. cholerae eltor isolated in the focus of cholera in Kazan in 2001 at different periods of the outbreak is presented. The identity of strains isolated from patients, vibriocarriers and environmental objects, including their antibioticograms (sensitivity to cyprofloxacin and resistance to trimethoprim--sulfamethoxazole, streptomycin, furazolidone and nalidixic acid, which may be regarded as markers), is shown. Variable tandem repetitions in the DNA of 30 isolates strains of different origin have been determined. The results of this determination make it possible to classify all these strains as one genotype, which confirms the suggestion on the circulation of one subclone of the infective agent of cholera in the focus. As revealed in this investigation, the isolated strains are labile with respect to diagnostic phage eltor, while ctx+ strains are resistant to phage eltor ctx+.

[The bacteriophage lysis-susceptibility properties of Vibrio cholerae strains isolated in separate regions of Dagestan in 1994]. / Fagolizabel'nye svoistva shtammov Vibrio cholerae, vydelennykh v otdel'nykh raionakh Dagestana v 1994 g.

The study of the properties of V. cholerae strains isolated in June-September 1994 in the Daghestan revealed that they belonged, according to their specific properties, to typical representatives of V. eltor, serovar Ogawa, but a great part of them (67.2%) was not lysed by diagnostic cholera bacteriophages. Experiments with different batches of diagnostic cholera bacteriophages showed the necessity of their further improvement.