Intratracheal inoculation as an efficient route of experimental infection with maedi–visna virus

Maedi–visna virus (MVV) spreads horizontally via the respiratory route. In order to establish an experimental mucosal infection route, we compared intranasal and intratracheal inoculation using the infectious MVV molecular clone KV1772-kv72/67. For intranasal infection 0.5 × 10 3–0.5 × 10 7 TCID 50 of virus was sprayed into the nostrils of the sheep. For the intratracheal infection 10 0–10 6 TCID 50 of virus was injected into the trachea. Successful infection was indicated by development of MVV specific antibodies and virus isolation over a period of 6 months. In the intranasal infection, only the sheep receiving the highest dose i.e., 0.5 × 10 7 TCID 50, became infected, suggesting that intranasal application was not an efficient mode of infection. In the intratracheal infection, the sheep infectious dose 50% was 10 1 TCID 50 and virus could be isolated from the central nervous system 4 months post infection with 10 4 TCID 50. Therefore it is concluded that intratracheal infection is a very efficient route for experimental inoculation with MVV.