Molecular Characterization of Fowl Pox Virus Isolates from Backyard Poultry

摘要

With the aim of characterizing the fowl pox field isolates with molecular techniques, scab materials (of comb, wattle and skin of the face) were collected from ten (10) clinically affected backyard chickens from two different agro–climatic zones of West Bengal state, India, viz. Red latterite (Jhargram, District– Paschim Medinipur) and Coastal saline (Kakdwip, District– South 24 Parganas).Viral DNA was extracted from the collected scabs and was subjected to fowl pox virus (FPV) specific Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for amplification of 4b core protein gene for confirmation of the presence of virus in clinically positive samples. In PCR, an expected amplicon of 578 bp was obtained in all the ten clinically positive samples and in vaccine strain as positive control. Restriction endonuclease analysis (REA) of PCR products with EcoR V and Mse I showed similar restriction patterns among the FPV isolates. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the amplified fragments revealed 99–100% nucleotide similarity with pox virus of other avian species. The present study revealed the molecular characteristics of FPV, circulating in backyard poultry in eastern Indian state West Bengal that was not reported earlier