Infection of primary cultures of mammary epithelial cells by small ruminant lentiviruses.

The caprine arthritis-encephalitis virus (CAEV) and Visna Maedi virus cause persistent infections with long latent periods and induce degenerative and chronic inflammatory lesions of the central nervous system, joints, lungs and udder. Monocyte/macrophage lineage is the main target cell for CAEV and Visna Maedi virus but we speculate that mammary epithelial cells may also be infected. Primary cultures of milk cells, mammary tissues of experimentally and naturally infected goats and ewes were used. Primary cultures of mammary tissue from ewes and goats were infected with the CAEV Cork strain. The lentiviral infection of the primary culture was demonstrated by a typical cytopathic effect in mammary epithelial cells and the presence of an infectious virus in coculture with permissive fibroblasts. To identify the epithelial cells in explants and demonstrate the antigenic expression of CAEV, primary cultures were immunostained with polyclonal anti-keratin and monoclonal anti-CAEV p30. Colocalisation studies under a UV fluorescence microscope and by epifluorescence microscopy showed the expression of specific viral antigens in mammary epithelial cells from the eight animals used. Infected mammary epithelial cells may act as a reservoir for the virus which may play an important role in the virus dissemination and in the pathogenesis of the mammary lentiviral disease.