ABSTRACT
Parainfluenza virus uncommonly causes fatal giant cell pneumonia in immunocompromised infants and children. To our knowledge, this is the first adult case of parainfluenza virus pneumonia. A 77-year-old woman who was diagnosed as having small-cell carcinoma of the lung underwent chemotherapy. She died of lung edema. Analysis of her serum showed antibodies to parainfluenza virus types 2 and 3 at titers of 1:64 and 1:128, respectively. The postmortem examination revealed giant cell pneumonia, in which giant cells and detached alveolar lining cells had intracytoplasmic inclusions. On electron microscopic examination, the intracytoplasmic inclusions contained fuzzy-form nucleocapsids.
Subject(s)
Pneumonia/microbiology , Respirovirus , Aged , Carcinoma, Small Cell/drug therapy , Carcinoma, Small Cell/radiotherapy , Combined Modality Therapy , Female , Humans , Lung Neoplasms/drug therapy , Lung Neoplasms/radiotherapy , Parainfluenza Virus 2, Human/analysis , Parainfluenza Virus 3, Human/analysis , Pneumonia/pathologyABSTRACT
A simple procedure for the analysis of the structural proteins of influenza and parainfluenza viruses utilizing adsorption to erythrocytes is described. The method involves virus growth in the presence of [35S]methionine, adsorption of clarified culture medium with a 0.5% suspension of either guinea-pig or chicken erythrocytes and analysis of the virus-erythrocyte aggregates by sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). All of the structural proteins can be detected using this procedure, and the protein profiles of virus-adsorbed erythrocyte complexes compare extremely well with those of sucrose density gradient purified virus preparations.
