Tissue explants used for enhancement of herpesvirus isolations

Herpesvirus recovery from normal and experimentally infected simian tissues prepared into 10 to 20% homogenates was compared with that obtained by explanting these same tissues. The explant procedure was by far the more sensitive of the two methods. As a result, 8 herpesvirus isolations were obtained by conventional virus isolation procedures in contrast to 74 isolates when explants were made from these same tissue sources. There is also evidence to suggest that the explant method is more sensitive than the use of tissue homogenates for recovery of other viruses as well.