Development of a nested polymerase chain reaction method to detect oncogenic Marek's disease virus from feather tips.

Abstract

For the easy survey of Marek's disease virus (MDV), feather tip-derived DNA from MDV-infected chickens can be used because feather tips are easy to collect and feather follicle epithelium is known to be the only site of productive replication of cell-free MDV. To develop a diagnostic method to differentiate highly virulent strains of MDV from the attenuated MDV vaccine strain, CVI988, which is widely used, nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to detect a segment of the meq gene in feather tip samples of chickens experimentally infected with MDV. In chickens infected with Md5, a strain of oncogenic MDV, the meq gene was consistently detected, whereas the L-meq gene, in which a 180-base pair (180-bp) sequence is inserted into the meq gene, was detected in CVI988-infected chickens. Moreover, the meq gene was mainly detected even in chickens co-infected with both Md5 and CVI988. These results suggest that this method is appropriate for the surveillance of the highly virulent MDV infection in the field.

• Authors: Shiro Murata, Kyung-Soo Chang, Sung-Il Lee, Satoru Konnai, Misao Onuma, Kazuhiko Ohashi
• Journal: Journal of veterinary diagnostic investigation : official publication of the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, Inc (J Vet Diagn Invest) Vol. 19 Issue 5 Pg. 471-8 (Sep 2007) ISSN: 1040-6387 [Print] United States
• PMID: 17823389 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)

Chemical References

• Marek Disease Vaccines

Topics

• Animals
• Chickens (virology)
• Feathers (virology)
• Genes, Viral
• Herpesvirus 2, Gallid (genetics, isolation & purification)
• Marek Disease (diagnosis, virology)
• Marek Disease Vaccines
• Polymerase Chain Reaction (veterinary)