An improved culture system for virus isolation and detection

Xia, Yu-chen; Hu, Zhi-hong; Qiu, Zhi-juan; Ma, Zhong-bin; Wang, Hua-lin; Deng, Fei

Cell culture plays an important role in virology. It provides a platform for the detection and isolation of viruses as well as for the biochemistry and molecular biology based studies of viruses. In the present work, a new system that could permits multiple (different) cell lines to be simultaneously cultured in one dish was developed. In the system, each cell line was cultured in an isolated zone in the same dish or well and the system is therefore called an isolated co-culture system. The usefulness of this novel approach for virus isolation was demonstrated using a model system based on adenovirus.