Adaptation of vaccine strain of duck plague virus in chicken embryo fibroblast cell culture

Abstract

The duck plague vaccine virus was adapted to grow in chicken fibroblast cell culture. Adaptation of the virus in chicken fibroblast cell culture was confirmed by detection of viral infection in infected cells by PCR and AGPT. In PCR, amplification of DNA dependent DNA polymerase gene of duck plague virus yielded 446 bp in vaccine virus against no amplification in negative template control. Total time required to complete the PCR including extraction of viral DNA is about 5 h. On the other hand in AGPT, faint precipitation lines were observed following 24 h and distinct bands were seen after 48 h of incubation at room temperature. The precipitate lines were obtained with acetate (pH 5.6) and phosphate (pH 7.2) buffer incorporating additional 8% NaCl. The cell adapted duck plague virus in the present study provides a scope to undertake further research on duck plague in India towards development of cell culture vaccine for use in the country.