While having a look around for work on Schmallenberg virus (SBV), I came across a paper (this paper) that compares two methods of doing experiments with this virus in animals. On one hand they have infectious serum from cattle. That is they have blood which they have taken from a single cattle that had been infected with SBV and that is packed full of infectious virus particles. These can be injected back into another cattle for infection experiments. This I will consider mammal-mammal virus.
On the other hand they have cell culture isolated virus. This virus was taken from a cattle blood sample and grown on insect cell lines then grown on mammalian cells again and then from here it can be taken into animals. I will consider this cell culture (insect-mammal) virus.
Now based on animal experiments they say that the mammal-mammal virus, grown and harvested solely from infected cattle is 'better' to use than the cell culture (insect-mammal) virus. They say it is better based on looking at the infection kinetics following inoculation of 4 animals each, in particular it seems because that it replicates to a higher rate in cattle than the cell culture one. Despite not being statistically significant I might add (!).
"this difference provides a clear indication of the pitfalls of culture-based production
of challenge inocula"
Now I really don't think this is correct to state. At least without the right evidence.
For one it is good to remember that these viruses have two natural hosts out there in the wild. At least TWO. Viruses are replicating in insects, then mammals, then insects, then mammals again... Although they can spread from insect to insect (I think) and from cow to calf (mammal to mammal), this last one is an evolutionary dead end. So 'real' SBV, whatever that is, must be that which has replicated in insects and in mammals. Growing virus in any one of these hosts for one time is bound to allow for adaptation to a single host that may prevent it from growing in the other. It is the classical evolutionary trade-off.
In experiments that will determine the development of vaccines and pathogenesis studies we want to work with what is 'real'. Not something that is essentially a lab artefact. Although the virus may replicate to a higher level in cattle, this might not be what's out their in the wild.
Now this brings me to my final point. We don't know which is best because we don't have the evidence. To determine which one is best we would have to compare it to the kinetics of a 'real' infection. Something which might be difficult to do given it's uncontrollable (in a scientific way) nature. One way to get away from this might be to sequence the genome of mammal-mammal viruses and compare them with insect-mammal viruses. They didn't do this.
Without these two pieces of evidence in hand I would want to stick with what Nature does. I would grow the virus in it's natural and medically relevant host species. Midges and cattle. This way we assure that we are working with something that is 'real'. Although it might be cheaper to sequence the damned things and see what's happening during growth on the different 'substrates'.
