Abstract
BackgroundThe incidence of reported cases of equine herpesvirus myeloencephalopathy (EHM) caused by infection with neuropathogenic strains of equine herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) has markedly increased over the last decade in many Western countries. The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence of the neuropathogenic (G2254) and non-neuropathogenic (A2254) variants of EHV-1 among isolates associated with abortions in Polish stud farms.ResultsThe results of polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) and sequencing were consistent, and showed that two out of 64 abortions (3.1%) were induced by the neuropathogenic genotype G2254. All remaining 18 EHV-1 positive abortion cases (28.1%) were caused by the non-neuropathogenic genotype A2254.ConclusionsMost of the abortions in mares in Poland from 1999 to 2012 were associated with non-neuropathogenic strains of EHV-1. However, the presented data indicate that the neuropathogenic genotype of the virus is also present in Polish stud farms. Such a presence suggests that the future emergence of EHM in Poland is probable.
Highlights
The incidence of reported cases of equine herpesvirus myeloencephalopathy (EHM) caused by infection with neuropathogenic strains of equine herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) has markedly increased over the last decade in many Western countries
The presented data indicate that the neuropathogenic genotype of the virus is present in Polish stud farms
EHV-1 can migrate with infected blood leukocytes to the central nervous system and replicate in endothelial cells of arterioles in the spinal cord and brain, causing vasculitis and thrombosis [5]; this syndrome is known as equine herpesvirus myeloencephalopathy (EHM)
Summary
The incidence of reported cases of equine herpesvirus myeloencephalopathy (EHM) caused by infection with neuropathogenic strains of equine herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) has markedly increased over the last decade in many Western countries. Equine herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) is a double-stranded DNA virus that occurs worldwide in all breeds of horses [1,2]. Previous research has shown that the neuropathogenicity of EHV-1 strains is strongly associated with a single point mutation in the open reading frame (ORF) 30 of the gene encoding viral DNA polymerase [6,7,8]. This mutation is a single nucleotide adenine to guanine substitution at nucleotide 2,254, corresponding to an asparagine to aspartic acid substitution. Two other studies revealed that another nucleotide substitution at nucleotide 2,258 of ORF30 could possibly be associated with neuropathogenicity [6,9]
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