Duck Hepatitis Virus in Duck Embryo Fibroblast Cultures

This communication reports preliminary observations on a field strain of duck hepatitis virus (DHV) in a duck embryo fibroblast culture system. DHV has been propagated through 25 passages in chicken embryo explants (10), 8 passages in chicken embryo cell culture (11), and 7 passages in chicken embryo liver cell culture (8) with no cytopathic changes and with low virus yield. A Japanese strain of the virus was found to be noncytopathic in cultured cells of chicken embryo, duck embryo, chick kidney and duck kidney, but the original liver virus and the chicken embryo 4th-passage virus formed plaques in duck embryo cell cultures (13). It was stated that the plaque-forming activity of this virus required further confirmation. Cytopathic changes were observed in duck embryo kidney cell cultures inoculated with DHV from the 16th through the 26th passages 24 to 36 hours after inoculation (2).