Identification of pestiviruses contaminating cell lines and fetal calf sera.

Three pestiviruses in fetal calf serum (FCS), a pestivirus in porcine ST cell line, and two pestiviruses in two of five bovine cell lines were detected by RT-PCR method employing panpestivirus primers selected from the 5'-non-coding region (5'-NCR). The 288 bp products were sequenced in both directions. To identify these pestiviruses, their nucleotide sequences and those of reference pestiviruses were used for construction of a dendrogram. Three viruses present in FCS and a virus present in the bovine RP-15 cell line were identified as bovine viral diarrhea virus I (BVDV-1). Bovine viral diarrhea virus 2 (BVDV-2) was identified in a batch of the bovine MDBK cell line. A pestivirus contaminating the porcine ST cell line was identified as a Border disease virus (BDV).