African warthog buffy coat cells retain susceptibility to African swine fever virus following whole blood transportation and storage

Abstract The spread of African Swine Fever (ASF) across much of the world is a profound challenge to both domestic and wild Suidae populations. While vaccine and countermeasure development for domestic swine are ongoing, the understanding of ASF within wildlife is limited. This gap in knowledge is largely due to the requirements of working with African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) in high containment laboratories, the complexity of utilizing wildlife in these settings, and researcher access to non-native species. Researching the role of ASFV within wildlife primary cells, outside a vivarium, is currently limited by the need to utilize either terminal processing procedures, such as harvesting alveolar macrophages or bone marrow, or processes requiring large volumes of blood, such as peripheral blood mononuclear cell harvests. The limited availability and access restrictions of susceptible wildlife makes obtaining these samples difficult, especially when working with endangered wildlife species. Harvesting buffy coat fractions is independent of terminal methodologies and the need for large volumes of blood. A methodology to support ASFV replication has recently been demonstrated utilizing domestic swine blood derived buffy coat cells. Through establishing collaborations with zoological partners, we apply this methodology to small volumes of blood from an African Warthog, a known ASF susceptible species. These results demonstrate the value of such partnerships and how they may be utilized in the future to evaluate ASFV in wildlife derived cells in vitro.