title: Outbreak of fatal childhood viral infection in Sarawak, Malaysia in 1997: inocula of patients' clinical specimens induce apoptosis in vitro.
abstract: Identification of the aetiologic agent(s) associated with an outbreak of fatal childhood viral infection in Sarawak, Malaysia, in mid 1997 remains elusive. It is reported here that African green monkey kidney (Vero) and human monocytic (U937) cells treated with inocula derived from clinical specimens of some of these fatal cases showed the presence of cellular genomic DNA degradation when the extracted DNA was separated by pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), oligonucleosomal DNA ladders characteristic of apoptotic cells when the infected cells' DNA was separated by agarose gel electrophoresis, and apoptotic cellular DNA fragmentation when cells were stained using terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT)-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL). These results suggest that inocula derived from the patients' clinical specimens contain factors which stimulate apoptotic cellular responses in vitro.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Microbiology, Universiti Malaya Medical Center, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abubakar
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shafee
authors.forename: H Y
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Chee
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis; D001483:Base Sequence; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002522:Chlorocebus aethiops; D003588:Cytopathogenic Effect, Viral; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D004770:Enterovirus / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000502:physiology; D004769:Enterovirus Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D020287:In Situ Nick-End Labeling; D008296:Malaysia / Q000453:epidemiology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D020298:U937 Cells / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology; D014709:Vero Cells / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral