Medycyna Wet. 65 (11), 775-780, 2009
| Otachel-Hawranek J. |
| Usefulness of the method of rabies virus isolation in the nueroblastoma cell line for the diagnosis of rabies |
| In the study, the usefulness of rabies virus isolation in neuroblastoma cell culture /RTCIT/ as a new method for the diagnosis of rabies was examined. RTCIT results were compared with those obtained by conventional diagnostic methods /FAT and MIT/ in terms of their sensitivity in detecting street strains of rabies virus in the brain tissue of suspected animals. The presence of rabies antigen in the brain tissue of animals was confirmed in 93% samples, using FAT and RTCIT, and in 91,6% samples, using MIT. Two results were MIT positive and RTCIT negative and two other results were MIT negative and RTCIT positive. The samples positive only in RTCIT reacted doubtfully in the FAT direct method. Moreover, none of the seven RFFIT-positive highly diluted (10-4-10-6) samples of animal brain gave positive reaction in MIT. A thirty-day cycle of observation appeared to be too short for the expression of rabies virus in the infected mice. On the other hand, cytotoxic effect prevented the detection of rabies virus by the RTCIT method in two contaminated samples of brain tissue. The samples were MIT positive. The results of this study indicate that RTCIT was able to detect rabies virus in the brain tissue of rabid animals even when its quantity in the inoculum was very low. Owing to its high sensitivity, RTCIT can replace the mouse inoculation test in routine rabies diagnosis. |
| Keywords: rabies virus detection, RTCIT, MIT, FAT |