๐ Experimental infection of dogs with a novel strain of canine coronavirus causing systemic disease and lymphopenia
A pantropic canine coronavirus (CCoV) strain (CB/05) has been recently associated to a fatal outbreak of systemic disease in young dogs. We report the clinical, virological and serological findings in dogs experimentally infected with strain CB/05. The dogs, three 2.5-month-old and two 6-month-old pups, were successfully infected, shedding viral RNA with their faeces for the entire observation period (21 days) and displaying systemic clinical signs resembling those observed during the course of natural infection. Leucopenia (acute lymphopenia) occurred in all infected dogs, with values dropping below 60% of the initial counts. Considering the severity of the CB/05-induced disease, two of the youngest pups were euthanized for ethical reasons at days 8-9 postinfection, whereas the other pups underwent a slow but progressive improvement of their clinical status with complete recovery. At postmortem examination, remarkable lesions were observed in the internal organs of the euthanized pups, that tested positive for CCoV by real-time RT-PCR and virus isolation on cell cultures. All pups seroconverted for CCoV, as shown by the high optical density values and antibody titres detected by ELISA and virusneutralisation tests, respectively. The present study confirms that strain CB/05 is highly pathogenic for dogs, being able to induce a severe disease (and in some cases the death) even in experimental conditions.
keywords
๐ present study (186)
๐ highly pathogenic (100)
๐ experimentally infected (47)
๐ clinical signs (108)
๐ canine coronavirus (102)
๐ cell culture (240)
author
๐ค Decaro, Nicola
๐ค Campolo, Marco
๐ค Lorusso, Alessio
๐ค Desario, Costantina
๐ค Mari, Viviana
๐ค Colaianni, Maria Loredana
๐ค Elia, Gabriella
๐ค Martella, Vito
๐ค Buonavoglia, Canio
year
โฐ 2008
journal
๐ Veterinary Microbiology
issn
๐ 03781135
volume
128
number
3-4
page
253-260
citedbycount
33
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