Relationship between Marek's disease virus load in peripheral blood lymphocytes at various stages of infection and clinical Marek's disease in broiler chickens

Vaccination with herpesvirus of turkey (HVT) vaccine provides protection against clinical Marek's disease (MD) but does not preclude infection with wild-type MD virus (MDV). The quantity of MDV detected in circulating lymphocytes during the early period after infection may be a useful predictor of subsequent clinical MD later in the life. A study was designed to quantify MDV and HVT copy number in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) using real-time polymerase chain reaction between days 5 and 35 post-challenge and to relate this to subsequent development of gross MD lesions. Female commercial broiler chickens were vaccinated with HVT or were sham-vaccinated at hatch, then challenged with MDV strain MPF-57 at day 2 post-vaccination and reared in positive-pressure isolators up to 56 days post-challenge, when all survivors were euthanized. All dead and euthanized chickens were examined post mortem for gross MD lesions. Birds were scored for MD lesions and mortality. MDV and HVT genome copy numbers were determined for each PBL sample. There was an increase in HVT load in PBL between days 7 and 37 post-vaccination, with marked increases between days 7 and 16 and again between days 30 and 37. There was a steady increase in MDV load to 35 days post-challenge. The mean MDV copy number (log(10)) was greater in chickens subsequently exhibiting gross MD lesions (5.05 +/- 0.21) than in those that did not (2.88 +/- 0.223), with the largest difference at 14 and 21 days post-challenge (P < 0.001). Quantification of MDV during early infection is therefore a potential tool for monitoring MD in broiler flocks.