Growth Yields of Four Coxiella burnetii Isolates in Four Different Cell Culture Lines

Although Coxiella burnetii is considered to be an obligate intracellular bacterium and grows in embryonated eggs, laboratory animals and cell culture, recently it has been grown in cell-free media and on agar plates. This current study was conducted to compare four cell lines for their yield of C. burnetii. Four different isolates of C. burnetii (Henzerling, Arandale, Cumberland and Timony) were grown in DH82, L929, Vero and XTC-2 cell lines. The DH82 and XTC-2 cells lines produced the highest C. burnetii yield which was slightly less than the yields achieved in recently published studies using cell free media. The Arandale isolate of C. burnetii produced a significantly higher yield in DH82 cells compared to XTC-2 cells (P < 0.03).