Pathological study of snyder hill strain in acute canine distemper virus infection in transgenic mice bearing dog signaling lymphocytic activation molecule (DogSlam)

Abstract

Canine Distemper Virus (CDV), member of Genus Morbilivirus, caused canine distemper disease, the most important viral disease of dogs with high mortality rate. The objective of this study was to verify acute canine distemper virus, Snyder Hill strain, infection in transgenic mice bearing DogSLAM (canine signaling lymphocyte activation molecule, CD150), as a susceptible host for the pathological study of canine distemper in vivo. F1 Transgenic mice, positive of DogSLAM tag receptor, 3 and 12 weeks old, both male and female were divided into 4 groups. Group 1 (control group, 4 mice); Dulbecco’s modified eagle’s medium (DMEM) inoculation. The CDV, Snyder Hill strain, was inoculated at 1x10 [superscript 5] TCID [subscript 50] by different routes in each groups as follow, group 2; intranasal inoculation ( 6 mice), group 3; intracerebral inoculation (6 mice) and group 4; intraperitoneal inoculation (5 mice). Clinical signs of experimental transgenic mice were observed at 12 and 24 hours post infection and daily monitored until 14 days post-infection. Others parameters included weight, conjunctival swab for detection viral inclusion body, blood profile, necropsy and histopathology of various visceral organs, immunohistochemistry for detection of CDV and anti-hemagglutinin (HA) antigen, RT-PCR for detection of CDV and virus isolation, were subsequently performed. All observed parameters showed negatively results of Snyder Hill strain CDV infection in transgenic mice bearing DogSLAM gene. In conclusion, the results from this study were unable to elucidate for CDV infection in comparison with the tissue culture study. However, further investigation about factors that related to SLAM gene expression for study of CDV infection in animal model should be concerned and investigated.