Beating Cardiac Cell Cultures From Different Developmental Stages of Rainbow Trout as a Novel Approach for Replication of Cardiac Fish Viruses

Abstract

Piscine orthoreovirus‐1 and 3 (PRV‐1, PRV‐3) cause highly prevalent infection in cultured salmonids and can induce heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI) resulting in economic losses in aquaculture. However, to date, PRV‐1 and PRV‐3 have withstood replication in continuous cell lines. In this study, we used beating heart cell cultures obtained from different developmental stages of rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss ) (RTC‐L and RTC‐A) and tested their ability to sustain replication of PRV‐1 and PRV‐3. Furthermore, we compared the replication pattern of the different viruses with those in the newly developed heart fibroblast cell line (RTH‐F) and the traditional established rainbow trout gonad cell line (RTG‐2). Neither RTCs nor RTH‐F cell lines supported replication of PRV‐1 and PRV‐3. Comparative experiments showed varying susceptibility of the novel cultures to viral haemorrhagic septicaemia virus (VHSV), chum salmon reovirus (CSV), infectious pancreatic necrosis virus (IPNV), piscine myocarditis virus (PMCV), salmonid alphavirus 3 (SAV‐3) and tilapia lake virus (TiLV), indicating their usability for work with multiple fish viruses. While confirming the difficulty of replicating PRV‐1 and PRV‐3, the results demonstrate the potential of novel heart‐derived cell cultures as in vitro tools for studying fish viruses.

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