Adaptation of Marek's disease virus to the Vero continuous cell line.
Marek's disease virus (MDV) is a highly infectious, cell-associated oncogenic herpesvirus. Production of MD vaccines has been limited to primary chicken and duck embryo fibroblast (CEF and DEF) cultures. These have a limited life span and cannot be readily stored in liquid nitrogen. Moreover, the need to prepare CEF and DEF cells on a regular basis from 10 to 11 day-old embryos derived from a flock that must be tested continuously for the presence of avian pathogens adds to the cost of vaccine production. A continuous cell line that would support MDV replication could have significant advantages for the rapid large-scale preparation of MD vaccines. In this report, we describe the adaptation to growth of CEF-grown preparations of serotype 1 and serotype 3 (herpesvirus of turkeys; HVT) strains of MDV in cells of the Vero continuous cell line. Although both viruses produced typical CPE, higher levels of infectious progeny and more extensive virus-specific immunofluorescence were obtained for HVT than for the serotype 1 virus. PCR and pulsed field electrophoresis (PFE) analysis of the DNA from Vero cells infected with either virus confirmed the presence of virus-specific DNA.
Jaikumar
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Department of Applied Biology and Biotechnology, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, VIC 3001, Melbourne, Australia.
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Tannock
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D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D002642:Chick Embryo; D002522:Chlorocebus aethiops; D003588:Cytopathogenic Effect, Viral; D004372:Ducks; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field / Q000662:veterinary; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000821:virology; D008381:Herpesvirus 2, Gallid / Q000254:growth & development*; D014709:Vero Cells; D014765:Viral Vaccines; D014776:Virus Cultivation / Q000379:methods / Q000662:veterinary*
D014765:Viral Vaccines