In vitro exposure of preimplantation porcine embryos to porcine parvovirus

Early porcine embryos at the four- to eight-cell stage can be infected with either the virulent (NADL-8) or avirulent KBSH strain of porcine parvovirus (PPV) by microinjection or by incubation of embryos with virus. Treatment of embryos by microinjection of virus or incubation in media with virus did not significantly inhibit in vitro development of the embryos when compared with untreated controls. RNA-DNA hybridization was used to identify the presence of virus associated with embryos. It was found that PPV-DNA was present in viable embryos after microinjection of embryos with KBSH and NADL-8 strains of PPV and after incubation of embryos with KBSH strain. The data indicated the presence of replicative virus associated with viable porcine embryos.