[Morphological makeup of the structures containing HBsAg in the blood of acute and chronic serum hepatitis patients]. / Morfologicheskii sostav struktur, soderzhashchikh HBsAg v krovi bol'nykh ostrym i khronicheskim syvorotochnym gepatitom.

Immune electron microscopy was used to examine the morphological composition of HBsAg-containing structures in 20 patients with acute serum hepatitis (ASH) and severe accompanying disease in whom HBsAg had been detected by the gel precipitation test for a long time, and in 7 patients with HBsAg-positive chronic active hepatitis (CAH) developing after ASH. Small spherical particles were the predominant form of HBsAg-containing structures in all the sera. Among ASH patients, a significant number of tubular forms and Dane particles were detected mainly in patients with severe accompanying diseases. No correlation between the appearance of a large number of Dane particles and tubural forms and the severity of the disease in ASH was established. In CAH, tubular forms and Dane particles in large numbers were found only in patients with long periods after ASH. Large numbers of Dane particles in all the examined patients were combined with a large number of tubular forms.

[Use of immune electron microscopy for detecting the hepatitis A virus]. / Primenenie immunnoi élektronnoi mikroskopii dlia vyiavleniia virusa gepatita A.

Attempts were made to isolate and identify hepatitis A virus by the method of immune electron microscopy using also biophysical methods and the transfection procedure of cell cultures by nucleic acid preparations. In fecal specimens from patients with infectious hepatitis A, virus-like particles 25-30 nm in diameter were found which reacted with convalescent antisera and could be detected by the immune electron microscopy method. By the same method virus-like particles 22-25 nm in diameter were detected in the blood serum of the patients collected early in the disease. A method for their purification and concentration in cesium chloride density gradients has been developed. Attempts at transfection of the cell cultures with preparations of nucleic acids failed. In the course of the study, however, data were obtained which would subsequently facilitate isolation of the causative agent of hepatitis A.