Transmission of Bluetongue Virus Serotype 8 by Artificial Insemination with Frozen–Thawed Semen from Naturally Infected Bulls

Viruses

Donal Sammin¹  Sara Van der Heyden²  Griet Vercauteren²  Leen Vandaele³  Bart Leemans³  Mieke Van Eetvelde³  Wendy Wesselingh³  Aart de Kruif³  Jean-François Beckers⁴  Claude Saegerman⁵  Isra Deblauwe⁶  Mickaël Riou⁷  Robert Gélineau⁷  Olivier Boulesteix⁷  Anne Pinard⁷  Ilse De Leeuw⁸  Tine Vanbinst⁸  Kris De Clercq⁸ 

[1] Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine Laboratories, Backweston, W23 X3PH Co. Kildare, Ireland;Department of Pathology, Bacteriology and Poultry Diseases, 9820 Merelbeke, Belgium;Department of Reproduction, Obstetrics and Herd Health, Ghent University, 9820 Merelbeke, Belgium;Département des Sciences Fonctionnelles (DSF), Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, Quartier Vallée 2, 4000 Liège 1, Belgium;Research Unit in Epidemiology and Risk Analysis Applied to Veterinary Sciences (UREAR-ULg), Fundamental and Applied Research for Animal and Health (FARAH) Center, Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, 4130 Liege, Belgium;The Unit of Entomology, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Institute of Tropical Medicine, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium;UE-1277 Plateforme D’infectiologie Expérimentale (PFIE), Centre de Recherche Val de Loire, Institut National de Recherche Pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), 37380 Nouzilly, France;Unit of Exotic and Particular Diseases, Scientific Directorate Infectious Diseases in Animals, Sciensano, 1180 Brussels, Belgium;

关键词: bluetongue;    bluetongue virus;    serotype 8;    BTV-8;    transmission;    artificial insemination;   

DOI  :  10.3390/v13040652

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Transmission of bluetongue (BT) virus serotype 8 (BTV-8) via artificial insemination of contaminated frozen semen from naturally infected bulls was investigated in two independent experiments. Healthy, BT negative heifers were hormonally synchronized and artificially inseminated at oestrus. In total, six groups of three heifers received semen from four batches derived from three bulls naturally infected with BTV-8. Each experiment included one control heifer that was not inseminated and that remained BT negative throughout. BTV viraemia and seroconversion were determined in 8 out of 18 inseminated heifers, and BTV was isolated from five of these animals. These eight heifers only displayed mild clinical signs of BT, if any at all, but six of them experienced pregnancy loss between weeks four and eight of gestation, and five of them became BT PCR and antibody positive. The other two infected heifers gave birth at term to two healthy and BT negative calves. The BT viral load varied among the semen batches used and this had a significant impact on the infection rate, the time of onset of viraemia post artificial insemination, and the gestational stage at which pregnancy loss occurred. These results, which confirm unusual features of BTV-8 infection, should not be extrapolated to infection with other BTV strains without thorough evaluation. This study also adds weight to the hypothesis that the re-emergence of BTV-8 in France in 2015 may be attributable to the use of contaminated bovine semen.

【 授权许可】

Unknown