Figure 5.

Effect of skin mucus removal on CyHV-3 binding to carp epidermal cells. Tail fin ventral lobes of carp were mock-treated or treated by rubbing with a soft tissue paper to removal epidermal mucus (see methods). Immediately after skin treatments, tail fin explants were harvested and inoculated ex vivo with the FL BAC 136 LUC TK revertant strain (10⁶ PFU/mL of culture medium for 2 h). At the end of the 2 h inoculation period, a fragment of the fin was collected and processed for electron microscopy examination (EM analysis). The arrows indicate CyHV-3 particles bound to cells or cell debris. Twenty-four hours post-inoculation, duplicate tail explant cultures were analyzed by bioluminescence imaging (lower panels).