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Diagnosis: Ranavirus Infection

Lab Animal volume 32, pages 24–25 (2003)Cite this article

In January 2002, we shipped eight axolotl neotenes exhibiting clinical signs and two apparently normal neotenes to Arizona State University, where we assayed them for the presence of ranavirus. Two ranaviruses, the Ambystoma tigrinum ranavirus from Arizona (ATV)1 and the Regina ranavirus from Saskatchewan, Canada (RRV)2, have already been identified as agents of mortality in A. tigrinum salamanders.

We euthanized the axolotls with MS222, and homogenized fragments of tail from the affected and apparently normal animals in a FBS-enriched Minimal Eagle's medium. We centrifuged the homogenized preparation and then applied the supernatant to epithelioma papilloma cyprini (EPC) cells. EPC is a fish cell line, from the carp Cyprinus carpio, used frequently for culture of fish and amphibian viruses3. We then incubated the cells at 25 °C under 5% CO2 for seven days to observe cytopathic effects, indicative of virus infection.

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References

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Acknowledgements

NSF Grant No. IBN-9977063 supported research at Arizona State University. N. Paramaswaran and D. Denardo provided valuable assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Davidson and Jancovich are affiliated with the Department of Biology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1501.,

    Elizabeth W. Davidson PhD & James K. Jancovich MS

  2. Department of Biology, Borland, Newberry, and Gresens are affiliated with the Indiana University Axolotl Colony, Jordan Hall 142, 1001 East Third Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-3700.,

    Sandra Borland BA, Meg Newberry BS & Jill Gresens ALAT, BS

Authors
  1. Elizabeth W. Davidson PhD
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  2. James K. Jancovich MS
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  3. Sandra Borland BA
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  4. Meg Newberry BS
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  5. Jill Gresens ALAT, BS
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Correspondence to Elizabeth W. Davidson PhD.

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Davidson, E., Jancovich, J., Borland, S. et al. Diagnosis: Ranavirus Infection. Lab Anim 32, 24–25 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban0303-24

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