Determine the Infectivity of Neurotropic Viruses by the Oral Route.
Abstract
Four street strains of rabiesvirus were tested for their ability to infect weanling mice via the oral route. Two strains isolated from vampire bats and a strain isolated from the brain of a horse proved to be infective when administered orally to mice, whereas, the fourth strain, isolated from the brown fat of a naturally infected insectivorous bat did not induce rabies in mice fed infected brain tissue. Attempts were made to induce oral infectivity in a street strain of rabiesvirus which was not infective via the oral route by serially passing the strain in suckling mice by intracerebral inoculation. A variant line of this strain, developed by 32 suckling mouse brain passages, possessed some characteristics of a fixed strain yet its inability to infect mice orally was not changed. During the course of studies on the pathogenesis of rabies in mice infected by ingestion, a paraffin embedding technique for preparing tissues for fluorescent antibody tests was developed which rendered rabiesvirus infected tissues noninfectious by fixation in Carnoy's solution followed by chloroform prior to embedding. The oral infectivity of another neurotropic virus, St. Louis encephalitis (SLE) virus was also studied. A strain of SLE virus isolated from the blood of a naturally infected bat produced encephalitis in mice fed virus laden brain tissue. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1972
- Accession Number
- AD0747845
Entities
People
- S. Edward Sulkin
Organizations
- University of Texas at Austin