Indian Muntjac cells are known to be susceptible to a variety of viruses, including vesicular stomatitis, (Indiana strain), herpes simplex, and vaccinia. The cells demonstrate resistance to poliovirus 1 and are negative for reverse transcriptase. Testing indicates that the Indian Muntjac deer skin fibroblast line produces detectable bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) antigens and infectious BVDV virions.

No other mammal possesses as few diploid chromosomes as the Indian Muntjac. Male Indian Muntjacs have seven large chromosomes, and the females only retain six chromosomes. Their small number and considerable size render cell lines established from Indian Muntjacs well suited for investigations focusing on the process of mitosis. In the burgeoning field of telomere biology, Indian Muntjac cells are often used as a model system. Telomere research has become increasingly popular in recent years as scientists attempt to develop a better understanding of cancer, which involves cells being able to overcome the phenomenon of chromosomal telomere shortening.

The peroxisomes and intermediate filaments in an Indian muntjac fibroblast cell culture (shown above) were immunofluorescently labeled with Alexa Fluor 750 conjugated to goat secondary antibody fragments directed against rabbit primary antibodies to peroxisomal membrane protein 70 (PMP 70) and Alexa Fluor 647 conjugated to secondary antibody fragments against mouse primary antibodies to vimentin. In addition, the culture was labeled for F-actin with Alexa Fluor 488 conjugated to phalloidin and the mitochondrial network with MitoTracker Red CMXRos. Cell nuclei were visualized with Hoechst 33248. Images were recorded in grayscale with a 12-bit digital camera coupled to either a Nikon E-600 or Eclipse 80i microscope equipped with bandpass emission fluorescence filter optical blocks. During the processing stage, individual image channels were pseudocolored with RGB values corresponding to each of the fluorophore emission spectral profiles.