Comparative Molecular Studies on FMD Virus in Some Egyptian Governorates

Abstract

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a cross-border Transmissible viral disease affecting a wide variety of animals. Egypt is under the potential risk of infection from neighboring countries with a background of the disease epidemics from 1950 till now although a comprehensive vaccination programme has been adopted. The present study aims to make a molecular comparison between foot and mouth disease virus in some Egyptian governorates, 14 FMD suspected samples were collected from diseased animals in the period from 2016 to 2019, the samples were FMD positive by Antigen detection ELISA, subjected for trials of FMDV isolation on the BHK-21 cell line, RT-PCR serotyping, and VP1 sequencing.VP1 encoding region sequencing and phylogenetic analysis were performed for some representative samples for each serotype. Antigen detection serotyping ELISA results were three samples positive for A serotypes, three for serotype O, and eight for serotype SAT2. The isolation attempt was successful for the A and O serotypes on the BHK-21 cell line. RT-PCR confirmed the ELISA results for both samples and tissue culture harvest. VP1 sequencing and phylogenetic analysis revealed that all serotype O strain belonged to topotype East Africa 3(EA-3) and were identical to each other with a percentage of 91 to 94%, while serotype A belonged to topotype Africa, lineage G-IV with 97 to 99 identity to each other, and serotype SAT2 samples were identical to each other with a percentage of 99% and were related with a percentage of 96% identity to topotype VII, Lib-12 a lineage that varies from previously recorded Egyptian Ghb-12 lineage G-VII strains.