鶏のマレック氏病の皮膚病変について

抄録

The skin was examined pathologically in 18 field cases and 1 experimental case of Marek's disease of chickens. Grossly visible skin tumors were detected in 6 cases (31.6%). Only two of these 6 birds had more than 10 skin tumors, whereas the other four had 1 to 10 tumors. In cutaneous sections, neoplastic lymphoid aggregates were observed in 11 cases (37.9%). Most of them were present adjacent to feather follicles. They frequently coalesced and expanded into interfollicular or subcutaneous tissues. Dermal nerves were usually infiltrated with lymphoid cells.
In stained preparations of nine of 15 cases examined, eosinophilic intranuclear and cytoplasmic inclusions were demonstrated in the feather-follicle epithelium. Numerous naked capsids and enveloped particles of herpes-type virus were easily detected in the superficial layers of the follicular epithelium of all 3 birds examined by the electron microscopic technique of thin sectioning.
In four of 6 cases examined by the agar gel precipitin test, specific precipitating antigens were detected in extracts prepared from the skin. There was an apparently positive relationship between the cutaneous neoplastic lymphoid lesion and either inclusions or precipitating antigens. In a few cases, however, no utaneous tumorous changes could be observed despite the presence of inclusions or viral particles in the feather-follicle epithelium. These observations suggest the possibility that infectious Marek's disease virus might be produced in and released from the skin, independently of cutaneous tumor.