TY - JOUR T1 - Association of myocarditis with high viral load of porcine circovirus type 2 in several tissues in cases of fetal death and high mortality in piglets. A case study. JF - J Vet Diagn Invest Y1 - 2007 A1 - Brunborg, Inger M A1 - Jonassen, Christine M A1 - Moldal, Torfinn A1 - Bratberg, Bjørn A1 - Lium, Bjørn A1 - F. Koenen A1 - Schönheit, Jürgen KW - Animals KW - Circoviridae Infections KW - Circovirus KW - Female KW - Fetal Death KW - Myocarditis KW - Myocardium KW - Pregnancy KW - Swine KW - Swine Diseases KW - Viral Load AB -

During a period of 1.5 months, a newly established pig herd experienced a high number of mummifications and stillbirths, a high neonatal mortality rate, and many piglets with congenital tremors or hind leg ataxia. After clinical and histological investigations, the submitted animals were divided into 4 groups: mummified or stillborn (N = 6), live born with myocarditis (N = 5) (average age 22.8 days), live born without myocarditis (N = 14) (average age 20.0 days), and control animals from a different herd (N = 5) (newborn). Statistically significant differences were observed in the mean porcine circovirus 2 (PCV2) load among the 4 groups in the liver (P < 0.0001). The presence of PCV2 antigen within the myocardial lesions was confirmed by immunohistochemistry. A high load of PCV2 DNA was observed in myocardium, liver, and spleen from mummified or stillborn piglets (>1 x 10(7) copies per 500 ng DNA), lower in piglets with myocarditis (>1 x 10(5) copies per 500 ng DNA), and even further lower in pigs without myocarditis (<1 x 10(5) copies per 500 ng DNA), whereas no PCV2 DNA was detected in the control animals. Myocardium, liver, and spleen were well suited for routine testing of fetuses and young piglets by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Neither porcine parvovirus nor encepaholomyocarditis virus was detected. These results indicate that the PCV2 infection might have been of etiological importance for the fetal deaths and piglet mortality observed in this herd.

VL - 19 CP - 4 U1 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17609345?dopt=Abstract M3 - 10.1177/104063870701900405 ER -