The presence of Coxiella-like organisms in the commercial foetal bovine sera.

ABSTRACT

During routine passaging of chicken embryo fibroblasts minute extracellular organisms were observed to develop in the cultures. These organisms could be detected in three different batches of commercial sera from three different suppliers. Passage of the organisms into laboratory guinea pigs resulted into their detection in the mononuclear leukocytes. The biological characteristics of these organisms are similar to those of Coxiella, already described by previous workers. The present results indicate that commercial sera could serve as vehicles of these organisms.