Experimental inoculation of cattle with bovine herpesvirus-4: evidence for a lymphoid-associated persistent infection.

A strain of bovine herpesvirus-4 isolated from cows with mammary pustular dermatitis was used for experimental inoculation of cattle. This strain is serologically indistinguishable from the group prototype Movar 33/63 and from strain DN-599. Seronegative cattle were inoculated IV or by simultaneous intranasal, IV, intramammary (via teat channel), and intradermal inoculations. All inoculated cattle seroconverted. Clinical signs of disease or lesions were not evident, except for a dermal lesion corresponding with one intradermal inoculation site. Virus was recovered from the dermal lesion and was excreted in the milk for 17 days. Virus was recovered from esophagopharyngeal fluid at 9 and 13 days after inoculation. At different times of euthanasia (2 to 14 months after inoculation), virus was recovered from cocultures with bovine lung cells and/or explant cultures of lymph nodes, spleen, tonsils, and, in one case, kidney. In 2 animals, the virus was recovered repeatedly during 1 year from peripheral blood leukocytes by cocultivation with bovine lung cells. The number of infectious leukocytes, as determined by infectious center assay, ranged from less than 1 to 6 infectious cells/10(7) leukocytes.