Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease Virus Titration.

Abstract

The titration of viruses onto susceptible cell lines is an important virological technique used to quantify infectious viral titers. It forms an integral component of epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) research, including estimating infectivity, calculating multiplicity of infection, and confirming virus propagation in cell culture. However, the ability to quantify infectious EHDV is also critical for disease control, particularly in the event of an outbreak. Routine EHD diagnostics do not accurately quantify infectious virus, which would allow accurate prediction of the onward transmission risk, but instead are typically more qualitative in nature (e.g., virus isolation) or only quantify viral genome copies (e.g., real-time PCR) which often remain detectable long after infectious virus is cleared from the host.Infectious EHDV titers are typically quantified through the detection of visible cytopathic effect (CPE) in the monolayer of susceptible mammalian cell cultures. However, not all susceptible cell lines demonstrate visible CPE upon EHDV infection, including cell lines such as KC cells, which are derived from the EHDV biological insect vector, Culicoides sonorensis. This chapter presents a comprehensive method for the titration of EHDV-positive samples onto relevant, susceptible mammalian (Vero) and insect (KC) cell lines and describes alternative methods that can be used to visualize EHDV infection, by CPE or immunofluorescent labeling of viral proteins, to enable the calculation of infectious EHDV titers.