The use of COS-1 cells for studies of field and laboratory African swine fever virus samples

Different naturally occurring, cell adapted or genetically manipulated stocks of African swine fever virus were able to infect directly cultures of COS-1 cells, producing extensive cytopathic effects and amounts from 106 to 107 of infective progeny virus per ml. The induction of late virus-specific proteins, demonstrated by RT-PCR and immunoblotting, and the development of lysis plaques by all the virus samples tested so far, allowed the optimization of both titration and diagnostic assays, as well as the proposal of a method for selection of virus clones during the generation of virus mutants with specific gene deletions.This work was supported by grants from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement KBBE-211691-ASFRISK and from Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (BFU2007-63110/BMC), and by institutional grants from Fundación Ramón Areces and Banco Central Hispano. C. Hurtado was funded by Centro de Investigación en Sanidad Animal (CISA).Peer reviewe