The epidemiology of malignant catarrhal fever viruses in bison
Date
2003
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
Type
Degree Level
Doctoral
Abstract
A competitive inhibition enzyme linked immunosorbent assay was validated and
used to estimate the prevalence of MCF-group virus infections in a sample of Alberta
farmed bison. Prevalence among 995 slaughterhouse specimens was 21.8%. Among 953
samples from a serum bank the prevalence was 23.9%, and among 646 samples from
five bison herds the prevalence was 23.4%. Test results from samples from one isolated
bison herd collected over a period of six years provided evidence that an MCF-group
virus was being transmitted across generations in the absence of exposure to any other
ruminant sources of MCF-group viruses. Study of an outbreak of MCF in bison
following a brief exposure to sheep provided very strong evidence that transmission of
MCF among bison does not occur. Culturing lymphocytes from 12 healthy adult bison in
the presence of the phorbol ester, 12-0-tetradecanoyl phorbol-13-acetate and testing of
DNA extracted from these cultures with consensus herpesvirus PCR allowed the
identification of viruses very similar to ovine herpesvirus two in five of the bison
samples.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Department
Large Animal Clinical Sciences
Program
Large Animal Clinical Sciences