Abstract
Panleukopenia is a viral enteritis of high mortality rate in Feline population. It is caused by a small single-stranded DNA virus, belonging to the Family Parvoviridae, called Feline Panleukopenia Virus (FPV). Parvoviruses are capable of adapting to new hosts and can simply mutate like RNA viruses, resulting in the emergence of different strains with antigenic changes. Unlike the original Canine Parvovirus (CPV) type 2, the antigenic variants (CPV-2a, CPV-2b, CPV-2c) earned the ability to replicate in cat hosts either with clinical signs or without any symptoms. Cats may be able to shed Parvoviruses for a long time and can serve as an important reservoir. Co-infection with FPV and CPV-2 variants has been also reported. These characteristics make the cat an important host for Parvoviruses. Since no molecular study has reported on Parvoviruses infected cats in Iran, a decision was made to study these strains of Parvovirus. Twenty-eight fecal samples were collected from kittens under 6 months of age, both male and female and different breeds which had leukemia. PCR was performed on each sample and 26 samples tested positive for Parvoviruses. Randomly, the PCR products of eight samples were sequenced and their phylogenetic tree was generated. Analysis of the results revealed that all eight samples are FPV and it appears that FPV is more clonal than the CPV-2 variants in Iran. Amino acid residue 232 from the VP2 gene of FPVs has been changed from isoleucine to valine, which has only been reported in CPV-2 and its variants. It seems that some FPVs of Iran are changing to the CPV-2 variants. Hence, it is expected that in the future, the CPV-2 variants will be observed in cats.
Highlights
Feline panleukopenia is one of the most important viral diseases of high mortality rate in the feline population
The amino acid residue 300(Gly) that was a dog specific amino acid changed to Asp in the Canine Parvovirus (CPV)-2a and CPV-2b isolated from cats
According to the findings of this study, it is speculated that Feline Panleukopenia Virus (FPV) is the dominant strain among kittens with clinical sign of panleukopenia in Tehran
Summary
Feline panleukopenia is one of the most important viral diseases of high mortality rate in the feline population. CPV-2 variants (2a, 2b, 2c) are able to bind with feline Transferrin receptors and enter into the cells (Ikeda et al, 2002; Hueffer and Parrish, 2003) Despite CPV, FPV is evolutionarily static and develops by random genetic drift (Decaro et al, 2008) whereas the mutation rate of CPV is much higher. The amino acid residue 300(Gly) that was a dog specific amino acid changed to Asp in the CPV-2a and CPV-2b isolated from cats. This mutation led to a loss of canine host specificity in these variants (Ikeda et al, 2000). Based on the authors' knowledge, no molecular study has been performed on parvoviruses which infect cats in Iran, Tehran and it was considered as the objective of this study
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