Morphological and immunological comparison of caprine arthritis encephalitis and ovine progressive pneumonia viruses

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The morphological features of caprine arthritis encephalitis virus (CAEV) replicating in cultured caprine cells are described. Although the virus replicates slowly and very little virus is released from productively infected cells, the morphogenesis of CAEV is strikingly similar to that of maedi-visna (also called progressive pneumonia virus [PPV]. After the transmission of CAEV to a more permissive permanent cell line derived from Himalayan tahr ovary, it was possible to grow and purify enough virus to initiate biochemical characterization. The structural proteins of CAEV are generally very similar to those of PPV, suggesting that the 2 viruses are closely related but not identical. This was substantiated by showing that serum from a CAEV-infected goat immunoprecipitated both CAEV and PPV virion structural antigens from extracts of radiolabeled virus and also precipitated putative nonstructural viral antigens from extracts of both CAEV- and PPV-infected cells.