Serendipitous Discovery of a Novel Murine Astrovirus Contaminating a Murine Helper T-cell Line and Incapable of Infecting Highly Immunodeficient Mice.

ABSTRACT: The unexpected seroconversion of sentinel mice in our facility to murine T lymphotrophic virus (MTLV) positivity led to our identification of a novel murine astrovirus that we designated murine astrovirus 2 (MuAstV-2). During our investigation, MuAstV-2 was found to be a contaminant of the T helper cell line (D10. G4.1) that was used to generate the MTLV antigen that we included in the multiplex fluorometric immunoassay (MFIA) that we used for sentinel screening. We eventually determined that cross-reactivity with the astrovirus generated a positive result in the MTLV assay. A confirmatory immunofluorometric assay (IFA) using the same MTLV-infected cell line yielded a similar result. However, the use of antigen prepared from MTLV-infected neonatal mouse thymus did not reproduce a positive

SUBMITTER: Ricart Arbona RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7446642 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature