Isolation of a reticuloendotheliosis-like virus from naturally occurring lymphoreticular tumours of domestic goose.
Naturally occurring lymphoreticular tumours were found in an adult goose flock. Diffuse and/or nodular lymphoma-like tumours occurred in the spleen, liver, pancreas, intestines and rarely in other internal organs. Osteopetrosis-like lesions and signs of other diseases such as amidostomosis, enteritis, arthritis and air sacculitis were also observed. The tumourous lesions consisted of proliferations of undifferentiated lymphoblasts and slightly differentiated plasmablasts of the bursal system of lymphocytes. Tumour cell proliferation was usually associated with parenchymal atrophy and occasionally with amyloid depositions along the walls of capillaries of the spleen and the liver. In tissue cultures, chloroform sensitive, typical C-type virus particles of about 100 nm were isolated. The isolate incorporated 3H-uridine, banded at about 1.19 to 1.20 g/cm(3) in sucrose gradient ultracentrifugation and was shown to be antigenically related to the reticuloendotheliosis group of avian retroviruses. In transmission experiments with chickens and geese, one of the four tested reticuloendotheliosis virus-positive cellular field materials caused a highly lethal neoplastic disease similar in cytology to that seen in the natural disease outbreak within four weeks after infection. The other three cellular field materials and the tissue-culture-propagated virus isolates induced either a runting disease syndrome or a similar chronic neoplasia to that found in the naturally diseased geese during an experimental period of 30 weeks. Reticuloendotheliosis virus was reisolated from the experimentally inoculated birds, and antibodies to the T strain of reticuloendotheliosis virus were also demonstrated in sera of surviving chickens. Neither Marek's disease virus nor avian leukosis-sarcoma viruses could be demonstrated in tissue cultures or in chickens of transmission experiments. The reported transmissible lymphoreticular tumours of domestic goose seem to be associated with infection of a new isolate of the reticuloendotheliosis group of viruses designated as Reticuloendotheliosis Virus Hungary-2 (REV-H-2).
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Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Veterinary Medical Research Institute, Budapest, Hungary.
Nemeth
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Sari
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Ratz
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Glavits
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Somogyi
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