Objective To study the risk of virus infection in mice raised with IVC equipment in the standard operating procedure of cage changing in independent ventilation cages and laboratory animal negative pressure barrier facilities.
Methods The susceptible mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) A59 strain was selected to infect 6-week-old BALB/c male mice. The nucleic acid detection method was used to determine the MHV infection of the adjacent cages in the same cage, different positions of different cages in the same IVC system, and sentinel animals in the negative pressure barrier facilities outside the IVC system.
RESULTS: The virus-vaccinated mice developed clinical symptoms 6 days after infection, and the MHV pathogen could be detected in the feces; the MHV antibody could be detected 3 weeks after the animals were infected; the other monitoring groups had no MHV positive detection at the experimental end point of 5 weeks.
Conclusion The standard operating procedure for IVC cage changing can guide the IVC cage changing operation to control the infection risk of viral pathogens to mice.