Interstitial Pneumonia Induced by a Plaque-Type Variant of Mouse Adenovirus 1

Abstract A plaque-type variant of mouse adenovirus, strain FL was isolated using L-cell monolayer cultures for the plaque assay. Intraperitoneal inoculation of this variant strain was observed to cause death accompanied by hemorrhagic lungs and interstitial pneumonia in adult C3H/HeN mice. Suckling mice developed patchy interstitial pneumonia after intranasal inoculation. Lethal disease was associated with infectivity (LD50 = 5.0 × 106 PFU) and the virus was detected in the lungs by electron microscopy. This plaque-type variant may provide a useful model that heretofore was unavailable for the study of adenovirus pathogenesis in pulmonary disease.