Comparative use of direct organ cultures of infected chicken tracheas in isolating avian infectious bronchitis virus

Abstract

Five trials were conducted to compare four in vitro methods of isolating avian infectious bronchitis virus (IBV)-direct organ culture of infected tracheal rings (DOC), inoculation of tracheal organ culture (OC), inoculation of chicken embryo, and inoculation of cultured cells. DOC was prepared from tracheas of chickens experimentally inoculated with field samples. In the other methods, pooled tracheal and kidney suspensions were used to inoculate OC, chicken embryos, and cultured cells. IBV was consistently isolated at the initial passage by the DOC and OC inoculation systems, but it was not always isolated by embryo inoculation and never isolated by cultured-cell inoculation. When combined with immunofluorescent staining, DOC was much more efficient than the OC inoculation system for isolation and identification of the five strains of IBV tested because of its simplicity and speed.