Viral nervous necrosis (VNN) caused by nervous necrosis virus is a serious disease affecting a wide range of marine, brackishwater and freshwater fishes. The disease causes acute mortalities in larval and early juvenile stages while adult fishes are asymptomatic and remain as carriers of the virus. In the present study, nervous necrosis virus was isolated from ovarian fluids of asymptomatic wild-collected Asian seabass, Lates calcarifer in SSN-1 cell line. The complete genome of the virus was amplified by PCR from plaque purified virus and sequenced. Bioinformatic analysis of the sequence revealed that the isolate belonged to red-spotted grouper nervous necrosis virus. The virus purified from infected SSN-1 cell culture supernatants by cesium chloride gradient ultracentrifugation resulted in two bands in the gradient. Both the bands on SDS-PAGE analysis and western blot revealed a single 40 kDa capsid protein. The virus replication was optimum at 26–28 °C in vitro and the virus can be completely inactivated using 3 mM binary ethylenimine in 32 h at 25 °C. The isolated virus was infectious and caused 100% mortality in Asian seabass larvae. The inactivated virus when injected to Asian seabass fingerlings produced neutralizing antibody titre ranging from 1:320 to 1: 1280. The isolate is a potential candidate for production of an inactivated vaccine against VNN.

由神经坏死病毒引起的病毒性神经坏死（VNN）是一种严重的疾病，会影响多种海洋，咸淡水和淡水鱼类。该病会导致幼虫和幼年初期的急性死亡，而成年鱼则无症状，并仍然是病毒的携带者。在本研究中，从无症状野生采集的亚洲鲈鱼（Lates calcarifer）的卵巢液中分离出了神经坏死病毒。在SSN-1细胞系中 通过PCR从噬菌斑纯化的病毒中扩增病毒的完整基因组并测序。对该序列的生物信息学分析表明，该分离物属于红斑石斑鱼神经坏死病毒。通过氯化铯梯度超速离心从感染的SSN-1细胞培养上清液中纯化的病毒在梯度中产生两个条带。SDS-PAGE分析和蛋白质印迹上的条带均显示单个40 kDa衣壳蛋白。病毒复制在体外26–28°C时最佳并可以在25°C的条件下，在32小时内使用3 mM二甲基亚乙基亚胺将病毒完全灭活。分离出的病毒具有传染性，并在亚洲鲈鱼幼虫中造成100％的死亡率。当将灭活的病毒注射到亚洲鲈鱼的鱼种中时，产生的中和抗体效价范围为1：320至1：1280。该分离株是生产针对VNN的灭活疫苗的潜在候选者。