Correlation between plaque size and genetic variation of type 3 poliovirus from a vaccinate

Vaccine strain derivatives could be serially isolated from the feces of a healthy infant for about 30 days after the second administration of a trivalent poliovirus vaccine. These were all identified as poliovirus type 3, and no other types were detected. The titer in feces increased gradually until day 19, when it reached a maximum, after which it decreased. The plaque size altered roughly in parallel with the changes in the titer. On day 11 it began to increase, becoming the highest abruptly on day 15, and then fell again. Oligonucleotide mapping analysis of RNAs of isolated viruses showed that the samples from days 1 and 11 exhibited the same patterns as those shown by the vaccine strain RNA. However, on day 15 many of the preexisting spots had decreased, and new ones appeared. On day 27, the pattern was again similar to that of the original virus, rather than that of the day-15 virus. A nonmetric distance scaling and cluster analysis suggested that all the strains were derived from the same origin and that the polioviruses on days 1, 11, 21, and 27 had closer relationships, but the poliovirus on day 15 was different.