Border disease: Experimental reproduction in sheep, using a virus replicated in tissue culture

Abstract

SUMMARY A California isolate of border disease ( bd ) virus propagated in primary sheep choroid plexus cells was used to reproduce bd in fetuses of susceptible pregnant ewes. A lamb with clinical bd and an aborted fetus from these ewes had diffuse hypomyelination in the cns by a luxol-fast blue stain, and persistent bd viral antigen was detected in the external and internal granular layers and white matter of the cerebellum by a direct anti-pesti-virus fluorescent antibody conjugate. Virus was also isolated from cns homogenates from the lamb and the fetus and from peripheral wbc from the lamb by cocultivation with porcine kidney (PK-15) cells.