Efficient Production of Antigenic Mosaic Reassortants of Rotavirus with the Aid of Anti-VP4 and Anti-VP7 Neutralizing Monoclonal Antibodies

Anti-VP4 and anti-VP7 neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (N-MAbs) were used to select efficiently antigenic mosaic reassortants of rotavirus whose VP4 and VP7 are derived from parental strains having different antigenic specificities of VP4 and VP7. Under the selective pressure of anti-simian rotavirus (SA11) VP7 N-MAb and anti-human rotavirus (Wa or S2) VP4 N-MAb, all the clones isolated after mixed infection with SA11 and human rotavirus were found to be reassortants having VP4 of SA11 and VP7 of Wa or S2 by serological and genomic analyses. Two reassortants isolated from the mixed infection with SA11 and S2 had a segment whose different migration in polyacrylamide gel was different from those of any RNA segments of the parent strains, suggesting the occurrence of rearrangement in the process of reassortment.