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Viral contamination of bovine foetal serum and cell cultures

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Abstract

THE presence of adventitious viruses in cell cultures is well recognised1, and when the cultures are of primate origin there are serious hazards for the production of human viral vaccines2. This is one reason for the increasing use of bovine cell cultures. These cultures, however, are not free from viral contamination3. We found that calf kidney (CK) and calf testis (CT) cells were often infected by non-cytopathic mucosal disease virus (MDV): the cells seemed morphologically healthy but nearly all showed fluorescence with MDV antiserum and rabbit-anti-bovine conjugate. We report here that both the cells and foetal calf serum, an essential growth factor of cell culture medium, are sources of the virus.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ARC Institute for Research on Animal Diseases, Compton, Berkshire, UK

    P. A. NUTTALL, P. D. LUTHER & E. J. STOTT

Authors
  1. P. A. NUTTALL
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  2. P. D. LUTHER
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  3. E. J. STOTT
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NUTTALL, P., LUTHER, P. & STOTT, E. Viral contamination of bovine foetal serum and cell cultures. Nature 266, 835–837 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1038/266835a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/266835a0

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