Growth of Foot and Mouth Disease Virus in Organ Cultures of Mouse Pancreas

Abstract

THE use of organ culture techniques in the investigation of animal virus diseases allows the examination of the histo-pathological processes of infection to be made under conditions which resemble more nearly the in vivo state than the monolayer type of cell culture, but which permit a considerable degree of control of the organ or tissue environment. As yet, this kind of investigation has not been widely made though observations have been reported on herpes simplex virus in skin¹ and also with polyoma and vesicular stomatitis viruses in mouse metanephric rudiments². Preliminary work with foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) has shown that in organ cultures of guinea-pig metatarsal pad³, virus multiplication will take place for up to four days, but only to a level at least 1,000-fold lower than in the metatarsal pads of the intact animal.