Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2009
The sensitivity of quantal and graded responses to mouse-adapted bluetongue virus for the detection of neutralizing antibody was compared using probit and rankit analysis. The graded response, based on survival times, allowed the demonstration of antibody in highly dilute serum, in which antibody was not detected by the quantal response recording percentage death.
Quantal responses to bluetongue virus variants were compared with theoretical dose-response curves constructed according to the Poisson distribution for the random variation of virus particles in inocula. Of these theoretical curves the first term in the Poisson distribution gave the best approximation to the experimental data but the fit to normal distribution curves was better. The quantal responses to bluetongue virus did not appear to reflect the random variation of one-or-more infectious virus particles in inocula.
In graded responses to bluetongue virus, a rectilinear relationship was observed between reciprocal harmonic means of survival times and log virus dilutions.