Sequential mitogen stimulation of peripheral blood lymphocytes from chickens inoculated with infectious bursal disease virus.

Chickens were inoculated wih the pathogenic Edgar strain of infectious bursal disease virus at 1 week, 2 weeks, or 1 day of age. In the 3 experiments, phytohemagglutinin stimulation of peripheral blood lymphocytes was significantly decreased on day 3 or 4 after inoculation. Subsequently, on days 7 through 21, stimulations were similar between lymphocytes from inoculated birds and those from control birds. Pokeweed mitogen stimulation was affected minimally in virus-inoculated chickens. In each experiment, on day 7, the spontaneous [3H]thymidine uptake was greater in nonstimulated lymphocyte cultures from inoculated chickens than in such cultures from control chickens. In an additional experiment, chickens 1 week of age were exposed to a pathogenic vaccinal virus given in their water. The vaccinal virus exposure resulted in significant decrease of phytohemagglutinin stimulation of lymphocytes on days 3 and 7 of the experiment. A significant decrease in pokeweed mitogen stimulation was observed on day 10 after inoculation.