Identification of a Continuously Stable and Commercially Available Cell Line for the Identification of Infectious African Swine Fever Virus in Clinical Samples.

Ayushi Rai,Lauro Velazquez-Salinas,Sarah Pruitt,Ediane Silva,Elizabeth Ramirez-Medina,Consuelo Carrillo,Manuel V Borca,Elizabeth A Vuono,Douglas P Gladue

doi:10.3390/v12080820

Abstract

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is causing outbreaks both in domestic pigs and wild boar in Europe and Asia. In 2018, the largest pig producing country, China, reported its first outbreak of African swine fever (ASF). Since then, the disease has quickly spread to all provinces in China and to other countries in southeast Asia, and most recently to India. Outbreaks of the disease occur in Europe as far west as Poland, and one isolated outbreak has been reported in Belgium. The current outbreak strain is highly contagious and can cause a high degree of lethality in domestic pigs, leading to widespread and costly losses to the industry. Currently, detection of infectious ASFV in field clinical samples requires accessibility to primary swine macrophage cultures, which are infrequently available in most regional veterinary diagnostic laboratories. Here, we report the identification of a commercially available cell line, MA-104, as a suitable substrate for virus isolation of African swine fever virus.

Highlights

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is the only member of the virus family Asfarviridae, and is the etiological agent that causes African swine fever (ASF)
We identified a cell line that is capable of supporting the detection of ASFV in field samples with a TCID50 sensitivity comparable to that of primary swine macrophages
ASFV-Infected MA-104 Cells Can Be Detected by Hemadsorption (HA)

Summary

Introduction

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is the only member of the virus family Asfarviridae, and is the etiological agent that causes African swine fever (ASF). This large double-stranded DNA virus has more than 150 open reading frames (ORFs) that are encoded in the 180–190 kilobase genome. Recent outbreaks of ASF started after a single introduction of ASFV in the Caucasus region in 2007. This outbreak affected Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia, and more recently has spread as far west as Poland, heightening the concern that this disease could spread into neighboring

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Conclusion