Immuno-Histopathologic Lesions in Organs other than the Thymus and Bone Marrow During the Course of Experimentally-Induced Chicken Infectious Anaemia (CIA) Disease

Authors: AYDIN GÜREL, BURAK KUŞÇU

Abstract: Chicken Infectious Anemia (CIA) is present in various regions of the world in which poultry husbandry is common and birds of any age are susceptible. CIA is a viral infection characterized by aplastic anemia and is accompanied by atrophy of the thymus and bone marrow. This condition was first diagnosed in 1979 and since then a large number of investigations have been undertaken in order to characterize and further understand the pathology of this infection. Most of these studies emphasized either clinical findings or physiological transformation of the thymus and bone marrow. There are a limited number of studies that investigated the lesions in organs other than the bone marrow and thymus. The objective of the present study was to examine the histopathologic lesions that develop in organs other than the thymus and bone marrow of 1-day-old chickens intramuscularly infected with the chicken anemia virus (CAV) and to detect the antigen density with the streptavidin-biotin immuno-peroxidase staining technique. Seventy-one 1-day-old SPF quality white Leghorn chickens, acquired from the Manisa Poultry Diseases Research Institute, were used in this study. On day 1 of the study, 52 of these chickens were injected intramuscularly with 0.5 ml TCID---_{50}:100,000 CAVs (Cux-1 strain). The remaining 19 chickens were kept in a separate facility as a control group. Necropsies were performed immediately after the chickens were sacrificed. Sampling occurred on the days defined by the experimental study protocol. Organ samples were taken from each animal's bursa of Fabricius, cecal tonsils, spleen, liver, kidneys, pancreas, large and small intestines, proventriculus, lungs, heart, trachea, esophagus, brain, and cerebellum. These samples were fixed in 10% buffered formalin solution. Despite the antigenic-specific stains observed in different organ samples, such as the bursa of Fabricius, spleen, lung, intestine, cecal tonsils, and glandular stomach after the seventh day of inoculation, no significant microscopic lesions were found in any of these organs. The findings of the present study show that CAV did not cause any typical microscopic lesions in the organs we studied (organs other than the thymus and bone marrow), unlike previous reports of CAV settling in the thymus and bone marrow causing lesions to transfers to other organs; however, they did become infected with the virus, especially lymphocytes.

Keywords: Chicken infectious anemia, histopathology, immuno-histopathology, lesions, bursa of Fabricius, spleen

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