ISOLATION AND MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE VIRUS IN KAFRELSHEIKH GOVERNORATE, EGYPT 2014

Abstract

Foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV) is the most economically important veterinary pathogen due to its highly infectious nature and ability to cause persistent infection.In the period betweenAugust to October2014, an outbreak ofFoot and Mouth Disease(FMD) occurred in Egypt. This study was designated to isolate and detect the current strains of FMDV circulating in Egypt. Twenty sixtissue samples were collected from clinically diseased cattle and buffaloes from Kafrelsheikh province.The isolation of the causative agent wasdone by inoculation of baby mice intraperitoneally then passed to Baby Hamster Kidney-21 (BHK-21) cells. The inoculated mice showed paralysis and death, while the infected BHK-21 showed clear CPE (cell rounding and cell death). Molecular characterizations of the FMDV were doneusing universal primers followed by serotype specific primers for A, O, C and SAT2. Only serotypes SAT2 and A were detected with an overall detection rate of 53.8%.Results of phylogenetic tree of the current FMDV strains revealed that there is no significant divergence among the recent isolated strains and other Egyptian isolated strains from different localities.