Serial Infection Research Articles

Excretion of pathogenic Newcastle disease virus by double‐crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) in absence of mortality or clinical signs of disease

Pathogenic Newcastle disease virus (NDV) caused several epidemics of Newcastle disease in double‐crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) in recent years. Eleven 16‐week‐old cormorants were infected with, or exposed to, pathogenic NDV from one of these epidemics and monitored for 70 days. No birds died, four birds had transient ataxia between 12 and 27 days post‐infection (d.p.i.), and one bird had neuronal necrosis and non‐suppurative encephalitis characteristic for Newcastle disease. The mean haemagglutina‐tion inhibiting antibody titre to NDV peaked at 1:630, 21 d.p.i., and decreased to 1:56 70 d.p.i. Duration of NDV excretion from the cloaca was 15 ± 6.2 d.p.i., with a maximum of 28 d.p.i. The absence of mortality in these birds may have been due to age‐related resistance. The excretion of NDV by cormorants in the absence of mortality or clinical signs of disease suggests that the cormorant population could maintain pathogenic NDV through serial infection of susceptible birds. The greatest risk of NDV transmission from cormorants to poultry probably is during autumn migration, through contact with infected birds, excreta or contaminated water.

Protective immune responses against protease-like antigens of the murine malaria parasite Plasmodium vinckei

The Plasmodium falciparum proteins serine repeat antigen (SERA) and serine repeat protein homologue (SERPH) have similarity in sequence with cysteine proteases in a well-conserved protease domain. We identified three SERA homologues from the murine malaria parasite Plasmodium vinckei and evaluated immune responses to the protease domains of these proteins. Mice that developed protective immunity to P. vinckei after serial infection and cure demonstrated humoral and cell-mediated responses against the SERA homologue protease domains. Mice immunized with Salmonella typhimurium expressing the protease domain of one of these antigens demonstrated cellular responses against the antigen and increased survival against lethal challenge with P. vinckei. Our results suggest that the protease domains of SERA and SERPH are worthy of additional study as potential components of a malaria vaccine.

Initiation of chemical studies on the immunoreactive glycolipids of adultAscaris suum

There is a general lack of basic information concerning one class of glycoconjugate, the glycolipids, from parasitic nematodes. As the prototype, the neutral glycolipid fraction derived from adult males of Ascaris suum was investigated as to its chromatographic, differential chemical staining, antigenic and chemical properties. The thin-layer chromatography-resolved neutral fraction glycolipids could be classified into components of fast and slow migrating band groups. Immunoreactivity was restricted to the latter as detected by IgG and IgM anti-neutral fraction glycolipid antibody levels in serial infection sera of mice. Similarities of chromatography, antigenicity and serological cross-reactivity have been extended to the neutral glycolipid fractions of other parasitic nematodes: Litomosoides carinii and Nippostrongylus brasiliensis. Chemical, differential chemical staining and enzymatic analyses identified the Ascaris suum antigenic, slow migrating band group of components as amphoteric glycosphingolipids, and not the originally hypothesized glycoglycerolipids or glycosylphosphatidylinositols, that contained typical neutral monosaccharide constituents and a zwitterionic phosphodiester linkage, most probably phosphocholine. Glycosphingolipid-immunoreactivity is eliminated on cleavage of the zwitterionic phosphodiester linkage by hydrofluoric acid treatment.

Behavioural and physiological effects in sheep of a chronic stressor and a parasite challenge

Mature Merino ewes, either at pasture (paddock) or in a feedlot situation (penned), were given a serial challenge infection with the gastric nematode parasite, Haemonchus contortus, and compared with control animals for their behaviour in an arena test, their plasma cortisol concentration and haematological and immunological status. Very low levels of infection resulted and parasitic disease was not evident. There were, however, significant effects on behaviour of both the challenge infection and the feedlot situation. The parasitic treatment resulted in a reduced distance between the sheep and the person in the arena test and also an increase in locomotor activity in the case of penned sheep. Overall, the penned animals displayed twice as much locomotor activity as paddock sheep. Mechanisms whereby a infectious challenge could affect sheep behaviour require further investigation.

Defective viral DNA ameliorates symptoms of geminivirus infection in transgenic plants.

Nicotiana benthamiana was transformed with a single copy of a tandem repeat of subgenomic DNA B isolated from plants infected with a Kenyan isolate of the bipartite geminivirus African cassava mosaic virus. Symptoms in transformed plants were less severe than in nontransformed controls when challenged with virus or cloned DNA of Kenyan or Nigerian isolates. Symptom amelioration was associated with the mobilization and amplification of the subgenomic DNA, producing a comparable reduction in the amount of DNA specific to each genomic component. The disproportionate reduction in the levels of full-length components (DNA A, 20%; DNA B, 70%) indicates that the episomally replicating subgenomic DNA has been amplified at the expense of full-length DNA B to three times the level of the latter. Serial infection of transformants resulted in a further decrease in symptom severity and viral DNA levels. No differences were observed in the severity of symptoms or levels of viral DNA when transformants and controls were challenged with the related geminiviruses beet curly top virus and tomato golden mosaic virus, demonstrating the specific nature of the interaction. Analysis of infected tissue showed that tomato golden mosaic virus was unable to amplify the subgenomic DNA. However, since the production of subgenomic DNA is possibly a common feature of the bipartite geminiviruses, this approach might contribute to the production of plants showing increased tolerance to a number of economically important viral diseases.

The induction of myeloid leukaemias by Rauscher murine leukaemia virus.

A number of cloned viral preparations isolated from Rauscher virus-producing JLS-V5 cells were compared in their competence to induce different types of leukaemias. All preparations were able to induce myeloid leukaemias, but the induction of lymphatic or erythroid leukaemias was also observed. Serial infection of newborn mice with either cell-free extracts or serum from animals suffering from a myeloid leukaemia did not result in the occurrence of relatively more myeloid leukaemias nor did the infection with virus harvested from ascites fluid of permanent myeloid cell lines. It appears that the mechanism by which myeloid leukaemias are induced is not virus-specific.

Counting Cicer-Rhizobium using a plant infection technique

Chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L.), a large seeded pulse legume, is nodulated only by a very specific group of Rhizobium strains which do not nodulate plants other than Cicer spp. If the cotyledons are removed just after germination, subsequent seedling growth is dwarfed, and plants will reliably grow and nodulate in large test tubes (25 × 200 mm) under axenic conditions with either sand or sand + venniculite as the root medium. The dwarfed seedlings of some selected chickpea lines can be used as a “trap host” for counting Cicer-Rhizobium in pure cultures and contaminated materials by a most probable number, serial dilution-plant infection technique. The value of such a plantlet as a “trap host” for studying Cicer-Rhizobium ecology, strain authentication and inoculum quality control is demonstrated.

Long-term mouse cytomegalovirus infection of tracheal organ culture: relation to host cell replication.

Tracheal organ cultures infected with mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV) were shown to produce virus for up to 180 days with virus replication primarily in epithelial cells. Persistent virus infections were established in tracheal organ cultures from both MCMV-susceptible and MCMV-resistant strains of mice. In acutely infected tracheal organ cultures, cellular DNA synthesis appeared to precede the production of significant amounts of virus antigens and the release of virus into culture fluids. Since persistently infected tracheal organ cultures continued to synthesize cellular DNA, the results suggest that host cell turnover may continually renew the population of MCMV-susceptible cells. The results suggest a possible mechanism for virus persistence in tracheal organ culture based on continuing serial infection of newly susceptible cells combined with prolonged release of virus infected cells.