Establishment of a novel equine cell line for isolation and propagation of equine herpesviruses

In the present study, an equine-derived cell line was established by transfecting primary fetal horse kidney (FHK) cells with expression plasmid encoding simian virus 40 (SV40) large T antigen and then cloning them by limiting dilution. The cloned cell line, named FHK-Tcl3, grew well and could be propagated over 30 times by splitting them 1:3. Equine herpesvirus (EHV)-1 and EHV-4 replicated well in FHK-Tcl3. EHV-2 and EHV-4 were isolated from samples collected from horses in the field using FHK-Tcl3, and EHV-3 also propagated in FHK-Tcl3. These results indicated that this novel cell line, FHK-Tcl3, can be used for isolation and propagation of equine herpesviruses.