The isolation of a number of strains of infectious bursal disease (IBD) virus from fowl, turkeys and ducks is described. These isolates could be grouped into two serotypes using the neutralisation test. It is proposed that the cell culture adapted vaccine strain from fowl should be the prototype virus for serotype 1 and that the TY89 isolate from a turkey should be the prototype for serotype 2. The isolates in serotype 2 consisted of an antigenically homogeneous group of viruses from turkeys and fowl. However, within serotype 1, which represented isolates from fowl and ducks, some isolates showed only a 30% cross reaction with the vaccine strain. If cross protection mirrors cross neutralisation, then infection with viruses belonging to serotype 2 or with antigenically distant strains from serotype 1 provides one explanation for the apparent failure of the vaccine on certain sites. However, if cross protection does not mirror cross neutralisation, then a virus from serotype 2 could be used as a heterotypic vaccine for young birds with high levels of maternally derived antibody to serotype 1.
SUMMARYA virus, designated 132 virus, was isolated from the faeces of chickens in chick embryo liver cell cultures. The morphology and morphogenesis of 132 virus were indistinguishable from that of rotaviruses. The nucleic acid of 132 virus had the nuclease resistance of double-stranded RNA, and was separated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis into 11 segments with mol. wt. ranging from 2.07 × 106 to 0.20 x 106. SPF chickens were susceptible to oral infection with 132 virus, which replicated in the villous epithelial cells of the small intestine. 132 virus was therefore a rotavirus by morphological, biochemical and biological criteria. However, by immunofluorescence it was not possible to demonstrate an antigenic relationship between 132 virus and known avian and mammalian rotaviruses, indicating that 132 virus does not possess the group antigen shared by all previously characterized rotaviruses. This finding has implications for the diagnosis of rotavirus infections by serological tests.
Rotaviruses were detected by electron microscopy in the faeces of turkey poults and broiler chickens with diarrhoea. Apparently symptomless infection was also observed in broilers. The avian rotaviruses could not be isolated in cell cultures by conventional techniques, but were adapted to serial growth in chick cell cultures following trypsin treatment of the virus and the cells. Immunofluorescence studies showed that the avian and mammalian rotaviruses are antigenically related. Antibodies to rotavirus were widespread in sera collected from turkeys, chickens and ducks.
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