Isolation and gene sequence analysis of goat pox virus in Viet Nam

Abstract

A total of ninety goats suspecting infection with goat pox disease were collected from Ba
Vi - Ha Noi, Ninh Binh, Hoa Binh and Nghe An provinces for this study. By using polymerase
chain reaction (PCR) technique for identifying the positive samples, 72 goats were found to be
positive with goat pox virus, accounting for 80% of the total studied animals. The lung and pustule
samples were collected from the positive goats for isolating goat pox virus in primary lamb testis
cells. There were 7 different goat pox virus strains were successfully isolated. Based on biological
properties, the 5 most virulent virus strains including GTPV-BV1, GTPV-HB1, GTPV-NA1, GTPVNB1, GTPV-NB2 were selected and gene sequences of these virus strains were analysed. The
identity/similarity level of amino acid and nucleotide sequences of 5 virus strains reached 81.1 to
95.99% and 90.1 to 98.38%, respectively. The result of phylogenetic analysis revealed that these
strains belonged to the same genotype. Remarkably, the GTPV- HB1 isolate was classified into
sub-lineage which closely related with goat pox virus strains from China, America and vaccine
strain AY077836/G20-LKV