MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF CIRCULATING FMD VIRUSES IN BOTH VACCINATED AND NON-VACCINATED CATTLE IN EGYPT

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a cross-border epidemic transmissible animal disease affecting a wide range of animals. FMD is widespread globally. Egypt is under threat of infection from neighboring regions with a history of the disease from 1950 until now although a broad vaccination program was implemented. The research was planned to make molecular
Surveillance of FMD viruses circulating in both vaccinated and non-vaccinated cattle in Egypt. Fourteen positive FMD antigen detection ELISA samples were serotyped using PCR specific primers and with trials for isolation on the BHK- 21cell line. Viral protein1(VP1) gene of some representative viruses sequenced and phylogenetically analyzed to detect identity between detected viruses and other reference isolates. Three samples were positive for serotype O, three positive for serotype A and eight positives for serotype SAT2.VP1 encoding region sequencing and phylogenetic analysis revealed that all serotype O strain of the present studies are identical to each other with a percentage of 91% to 94% and found to
be related to EA-3 topotype, all serotypes A strain were identical with 97% to 99% to each other and clustered to genotype G-IV of African strain and all serotype SAT2 were 99% identical to each other and were related to topotype VII, Lib-12 lineage that differs from the previously-reported Egyptian strains of Ghb-12 lineage of G-VII. The present study
demonstrated the co-circulation of O, A, and SAT2 serotypes of FMD virus in Egypt in both vaccinated and non-vaccinated animals, and emerging of a new SAT2 subtype that guides us to increase attention to the borders to prevent the leakage of disease-carrying animals.