Abstract
BackgroundSurveillance for circulating emerging diseases of economic importance has a major role in the rapid response to major pathogen outbreaks. Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is one of the significant endemic viruses in Egypt. FMDV is periodically investigated for monitoring evolution and emergence of new variants. The genetic characterization of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus serotype A responsible for recent outbreaks of FMD in Egypt was determined.MethodsSamples were collected from different locations and virus isolation was performed using BHK-21 cells. Viral RNA was extracted and samples were screened for FMDV using real-time RT-PCR. DNA sequence analysis was performed and computational and bioinformatics analyses were used to determine the substitution rates and phylogenetic relationship.ResultsSequence and phylogenetic analyses of full-length 1D region of FMDV samples collected from different governorates in 2020 showed close similarity to Egyptian FMDV strains from serotype A-African topotype-G-IV with genetic variation of 6.5%. Recently isolated FMDV strains showed high genetic variations from locally used vaccine strains in the major antigenic sites of VP1 region.ConclusionsAlthough, efforts made by the veterinary authorities to implement an effective mass vaccination plan, the recently detected FMDV strains in this study could not be subtyped using the FMDV primers routinely used for molecular serotyping. These dissimilarities raise the alarm for reconsideration of the FMDV isolates used in vaccine manufacture. Clearly close monitoring of FMD in Egypt is urgently required to define the risks of future outbreaks and to ensure appropriate control measures against FMD major outbreaks.
Highlights
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious transboundary viral disease which affects large number of cloven-hoofed animals and causes severe economic losses due to reduction in milk yield and meat production, death of young animals, costs of medication, and Hassan et al Virology Journal (2022) 19:1 restriction of animal movement from endemic countries [1,2,3].Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is a member of the genus Aphthovirus in the family Picornaviridae
FMDV screening using qRT‐PCR The 28 collected samples were initially screened for FMDV using Real time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and 22 (78.5%) samples were positive using pan-FMDV 3D primers set [20]
Virus isolation Virus culture was performed for six of the FMDV positive samples and the samples were selected according to their Ct values
Summary
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious transboundary viral disease which affects large number of cloven-hoofed animals and causes severe economic losses due to reduction in milk yield and meat production, death of young animals, costs of medication, and Hassan et al Virology Journal (2022) 19:1 restriction of animal movement from endemic countries [1,2,3].Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is a member of the genus Aphthovirus in the family Picornaviridae. FMDV has seven immunologically distinct serotypes A, O, C, Sothern African territories (SAT) 1, SAT 2, SAT 3 and Asia. Within these serotypes, more than 65 diversities of topotypes, genetic lineages, and strains have been identified [4, 5]. VP1 is a highly variable protein which contains the major immunogenic epitopes It has 30–50% inconsistency between the seven serotypes. This variable protein plays an important role in the molecular epidemiology investigations of FMDV globally [8]. The genetic characterization of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus serotype A responsible for recent outbreaks of FMD in Egypt was determined
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