Detection of a cell line contaminated with hog cholera virus

Cell lines from the repository of the American Type Culture Collection were examined for possible contamination with bovine viral diarrhea virus. During testing, hog cholera virus (HCV) was detected in the IB-RS-2 D10 porcine kidney cell line. This variant of HCV was avirulent for pigs and seldom induced detectable concentrations of antibody against reference viruses (HCV-Ames or bovine viral diarrhea virus-NY1) in serum of inoculated pigs. Additionally, this variant of HCV did not confer protection to pigs against virulent HCV. The contaminated cell line had been distributed to > 20 laboratories in the United States. The cell line was not used in field studies and has been destroyed.