On the etiological role of Herpesvirus ovis in jaagsiekte

Serologically related ovine herpesviruses have been isolated independently by various workers in different countries from adenomatous lung tissue of sheep or cell cultures derived from it. Although the disease can be transmitted with lung homogenates and with cell cultures, transmission attempts with virus alone failed. IUDR treatment of tumour-cell cultures and co-cultivation or fusion with cells permissive for virus replication induced antigens which react with some sera from tumour-bearing animals. These antigens give positive immunofluorescence reactions with sera both positive and negative in neutralization assays against the virus, however. Hybridization studies failed to demonstrate the presence of viral genomes in 15.4 tumour cells.