First isolation of border disease virus in Japan is from a pig farm with no ruminants.

The first isolation of border disease virus (BDV) in Japan was from a pig farm of the farrow-to-finishing type that kept no small ruminants or cattle. The infection was detected in the course of sero-surveillance for classical swine fever virus (CSFV) in Japan. The infected pigs had no clinical symptoms of CSFV or other disease; nevertheless, a high sero-positive rate of 58.5% was identified. A persistently infected pig with the BDV was found and suspected to be the cause of sero-prevalence in the farm. The isolated BDV was genetically close to BDV strains from New Zealand, but there was no epidemiological evidence concerning the route(s) of the invasion into the farm.

Establishment of a novel ovine kidney cell line for isolation and propagation of viruses infecting domestic cloven-hoofed animal species.

A sheep kidney-derived cell line, FLK-N3, was successfully established after serial (>100) passages. Persistent infection of this cell line with viruses and mycoplasma was not detected. The cells grew well and showed susceptibility to a wide variety of viruses derived from ovine, bovine, and porcine species, including orf virus, maedi visna virus, bovine herpesvirus 1, bovine parainfluenza virus 3, bovine viral diarrhea viruses 1 and 2, bovine coronavirus, bovine respiratory syncytial virus, bovine enterovirus, suid herpesvirus 1, and porcine enterovirus. These results suggest that the FLK-N3 cell line could be useful for isolation and propagation of viruses that affect cloven-hoofed animals.