Isolation, and Molecular Identification of Goat Pox Virus in Suez Canal Area, Egypt

Abstract

Goat pox virus is a highly contagious viral disease of goats causing huge economic losses in animal productivity. This study was designed for isolation, identification and molecular characterization of goat pox virus in Suez Canal area. From a total of 200 goats in 6 flocks located in Suez Canal provinces; Ismailia, Suez, and Port Said, about 26 skin scab samples mixed in 6 pools and 116 serum samples were collected in the period from 2017 to 2019. Typical pock lesion were observed in 4/6   (66.66%) of pooled samples, while the rest of the sample 2/6 (33.33%) showed no pathological changes on the chorioallantois membrane (CAM) of 11-13 days old embryonated chicken eggs (ECE). A total of 18 positive samples out of 116 examined sera were recorded by AGPT with a total positive percentage of 15.52 %. Goat pox virus antibody titer was higher in vaccinated animals than non-vaccinated animals. Goats less than 6 months old exhibited higher antibody titer than animals more than 6 months old. Conventional PCR was done for 3 pooled goat pox isolates with capripox specific primers for P32 (primer 1) and 3 pooled isolate for p32 (primer 2) one pooled isolate for RPO30 gene. PCR were carried out for goat pox virus isolates recovered from animal skin crusts and CAM harvest of infected eggs. The size of the PCR products by 1.5% gel electrophoresis with capripox specific primers for P32 (primer 1, 2) and RPO30 gene were 89 and 390 and 151 base pairs respectively.