The Hep-2 cell line was compared to primary rhesus monkey kidney cell cultures (RMK) in the intratypic serodifferentiation of 28 type 1 and 3 poliovirus strains, by the method of comparison of neutralization indices. The correlation between the indices was high - 0.953 and 0.986 after incubation periods of three and five days, respectively - and all the strains showed the same identification result in both the cell sistems studied. It is concluded that cultures of the Hep-2 cell line can be used as an alternative of the primary rhesus monkey kidney cell cultures in the intratypic differentiation of type J and 3 polioviruses by that method, with the inherent advantages to the continuous passage cell lines.
Poliovirus; Neutralization indices; Cells, cultured
