Mostafa El-gaffary
Cairo University, Egypt
Title: Evaluation of the rabbit as a laboratory model for Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus infection
Biography
Biography: Mostafa El-gaffary
Abstract
Bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) is an important pathogen of even-toed ungulates; it is endemic in cattle herds in most parts of the world. It belongs to the family Flaviviridae, genus Pestivirus. Until now there is no standard lab host for BVDV although some reports mentioned that rabbit could propagate certain strains of BVDV upon intravenous exposure, Lacking of lab host is an obstacle facing most of researcher. Our work aimed to evaluation of rabbits as lab host for BVDV using NADL BVDV strain in white New Zealand rabbits. Successful multiple passages of BVDV in rabbits using mixture of splenic homogenate and buffy coat were achieved followed by re-isolation and molecular identification of the virus from infected animals, later the re-isolated virus have been intravenously administrated in rabbits, animals developed signs of depression and off-food for 3 days followed by diarrhea in some of them also transient leukopenia, lymphocytopenia and thrombocytopenia were observed. Post-mortem and histo-pathological examination showed typical picture of Pestiviruses transient infection. Demonstration of the viral antigen have been done on splenic tissues using immunohistochemistry, moreover virus propagation have been followed up and confirmed over 10 days using quantitative Real-Time PCR technique on tissue samples on the other hand saliva and feces were virus negative. From our work we discovered that adapted NADL BVDV strain have the capability of induction transient Pestivirus like infection in rabbits which makes rabbits as suitable lab animal for BVDV pathogenicity and virocidal studies.
