Pathogenetic aspects of rabbits’ experimental infection caused by bovine leukemia virus

Abstract

Bovine leukemia virus (BLV) is an infectious disease of cattle, causing high economic losses worldwide, especially in the field of dairy farming. There is no common vision on the problem of interspecies transmission of BLV. Therefore, a detailed study of the etiologic relationship between leukemia in cattle and other animal species is relevant. Various laboratory animal models provide insight into the pathogenesis of viral infections. The article presents the research results of two series rabbits’ intravenous infection with bovine leukemia virus (BLV) using the culture antigen FLK-BLV and the blood of rabbits with clinical, hematological and immunological signs of viral tumor growth. Blood from all animals was taken from the ear vein after 14, 21, 30 days, and then monthly for six months: to study the morphological parameters of blood and to determine the titer of antibodies to BLV. Blood serum for the presence of antibodies to BLV was examined using a diagnostic kit for the indication of animals infected with the leukemia virus in an immunodiffusion reaction produced by LLC “SRE Veterinary Medicine”, Kharkiv. It was found that the stage of the BLV provirus in the blood leukogram of infected animals was characterized by pronounced lymphocytosis on the 21st day of the experiment. The highest concentration of antibodies to BLV in the blood serum was found on the 90th day after the administration of the virus-containing material, which disappeared from the blood on the 150–180th day after infection. In experimental rabbits, after five months for thirty days, in the absence of antibodies to leukemia in the blood serum, multiple tumors of a dense consistency began to develop throughout the body. Such clinical signs and changes in the of rabbits’ blood of the experimental group are characteristic of serologically positive cows on the hematological development stage of leukemic process and correlate with the results of domestic and foreign authors. The presence of a large number of lymphoblasts, as well as leukolysis cells, in the histological preparation of lymph nodes, lungs, heart and the accumulation of lymphocytes’ immature forms around the interlobular vessels of the liver, which were found in pathohistological studies of the experimental rabbits’ organs, may indicate the development of the leukemia process on early stage in them. The results obtained indicate the ability of BLV to overcome successfully the interspecies barrier upon parenteral ingestion of heterologous individuals from infected lymphocytes and in the form of a culture antigen.