Recovery in tracheal organ cultures of novel viruses from patients with respiratory disease.

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Abstract
In acute upper respiratory tract disease in adults, naso-pharyngeal washings which failed to yield viruses by standard tissue culture techniques were examined in human embryonic tracheal organ cultures. From 23 specimens, 8 agents were recovered, 2 of which appeared to be ether-stable and were detectable only by their ciliary immobilizing effect in organ culture. The remaining 6 were detected when organ culture harvests were examined by electron microscopy. These viruses exhibited an unusual morphology closely resembling that of avian infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) and 2 other ether-labile agents recovered from man: strain 229E, and strain B814, an organ-culture-propagated virus. Five of the 6 "IBV-like" viruses were examined and were inactivated by ether. This group, for which IBV is the morphologic prototype, appears to be distinct from the myxoviruses.