A total of 51 goats, including seven clinical cases, from the first herd in Greece reported to have scrapie was examined to discern an association between scrapie susceptibility and polymorphisms of the gene encoding the prion protein (PrP). Each animal was evaluated for clinical signs of the disease, histopathological lesions associated with scrapie, the presence of detectable proteaseresistant PrP in the brain and PrP genotype. Eleven different PrP genotypes encoding at least five unique predicted mature PrP amino acid sequences were found. These genotypes included the amino acid polymorphisms at codons 143 (H R) and 240 (S P) and ' silent ' nucleotide alterations at codons 42 (a g) and 138 (c t). Additionally, novel caprine amino acid polymorphisms were detected at codons 21 (V A), 23 (L P), 49 (G S), 154 (R H), 168 (P Q) and 220 (Q H) and new silent mutations were found at codons 107 (g a) and 207 (g a). The following variants were found in scrapie-

Swine influenza causes concern for global veterinary and public health officials. In continuing two previous networks that initiated the surveillance of swine influenza viruses (SIVs) circulating in European pigs between 2001 and 2008, a third European Surveillance Network for Influenza in Pigs (ESNIP3, 2010–2013) aimed to expand widely the knowledge of the epidemiology of European SIVs. ESNIP3 stimulated programs of harmonized SIV surveillance in European countries and supported the coordination of appropriate diagnostic tools and subtyping methods. Thus, an extensive virological monitoring, mainly conducted through passive surveillance programs, resulted in the examination of more than 9 000 herds in 17 countries. Influenza A viruses were detected in 31% of herds examined from which 1887 viruses were preliminary characterized. The dominating subtypes were the three European enzootic SIVs: avian-like swine H1N1 (53.6%), human-like reassortant swine H1N2 (13%) and human-like reassortant swine H3N2 (9.1%), as well as pandemic A/H1N1 2009 (H1N1pdm) virus (10.3%). Viruses from these four lineages co-circulated in several countries but with very different relative levels of incidence. For instance, the H3N2 subtype was not detected at all in some geographic areas whereas it was still prevalent in other parts of Europe. Interestingly, H3N2-free areas were those that exhibited highest frequencies of circulating H1N2 viruses. H1N1pdm viruses were isolated at an increasing incidence in some countries from 2010 to 2013, indicating that this subtype has become established in the European pig population. Finally, 13.9% of the viruses represented reassortants between these four lineages, especially between previous enzootic SIVs and H1N1pdm. These novel viruses were detected at the same time in several countries, with increasing prevalence. Some of them might become established in pig herds, causing implications for zoonotic infections.

Nineteen dogs from Greece with chronic ehrlichiosis were studied. The dogs exhibited bicytopenia or pancytopenia, bone marrow hypoplasia, seroreactivity to Ehrlichia canis (E. canis) antigens, and had no history of drug or radiation exposure. Anorexia, depression, severe bleeding tendencies, hypoalbuminemia, and increased serum alanine aminotransferase activity were also hallmarks of the disease. All these animals eventually died, irrespective of the treatment applied. Some dogs were also serologically positive for Rickettsia conorii, Leishmania infantum (L. infantum), and Bartonella vinsonii subspp. berkhoffii. Polymerase chain reaction testing of bone marrow samples revealed E. canis, Anaplasma phagocytophilia, Anaplasma platys, and L. infantum in some dogs. Concurrent infections did not appear to substantially influence the clinical course and final outcome of the chronic canine ehrlichiosis.

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A total of 216 local crossbred sheep from 16 scrapie-affected Greek flocks and 210 purebred sheep of the milk breeds Chios and Karagouniko from healthy flocks were analysed for scrapie-linked polymorphisms in the prion protein (PrP) gene. Of the 216 sheep in this case-control study, 96 sheep were clinical cases, 25 subclinical cases (asymptomatic at the moment of euthanasia but positive by histopathology and/or ELISA detecting proteinase-resistant PrP) and 95 healthy controls (negative by all evaluations). Polymorphisms at codons 136, 154 and 171 were determined by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, followed by RFLP and sequencing. Scrapie, both clinical and subclinical, was associated with the genotypes ARQ/ARQ (88 of 110 sheep of that genotype), ARQ/TRQ (9 of 13), ARQ/AHQ (15 of 38) and VRQ/VRQ (9 of 17). Histopathological lesions were more severe in the clinical cases. Genotypes ARQ/ARR (26 sheep), ARQ/ARK (seven sheep), AHQ/ARR (one sheep), ARH/ARH (one sheep) and ARR/ARH (three sheep) were detected exclusively in healthy control sheep. In the purebred survey, four genotypes were present in the Chios sheep (ARQ/ARQ, ARQ/TRQ, ARQ/AHQ and ARQ/ARR) and four in the Karagouniko sheep (ARQ/ARQ, ARQ/AHQ, ARQ/ARR and ARQ/ARH). INTRODUCTIONScrapie is an infectious neurodegenerative fatal disease of sheep and goats belonging to the group of transmissible subacute spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), along with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), chronic wasting disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. All TSEs are characterized by long incubation periods, disturbances in behaviour and movement, degeneration in tissues of the central nervous system (CNS) and accumulation of an abnormal isoform of the host-encoded cellular prion protein in tissues of the CNS. It has been hypothesized that these diseases are attributable to a conformational change in the prion protein (PrP), which results in a change from a predominantly a-helical protein to a b-sheet form (Prusiner, 1996). Normal PrP protein (PrP c ) is a cell-surface glycoprotein, the expression of which is necessary for the production of prions (Büeler et al., 1993;Prusiner et al., 1993). PrP c is expressed in most tissues of the body, with the nervous tissues showing the highest PrP c expression levels (Bendheim et al., 1992;Horiuchi et al., 1995).In several animal species and in humans, polymorphisms within the open reading frame of the PrP gene are associated with the occurrence and the pathological lesions of TSEs (Pocchiari, 1994). The incidence of natural scrapie is strongly influenced by alterations in the host gene that encodes the PrP (Hunter, 1997). Such polymorphisms may influence the conversion of PrP c into the pathogenic isoform . The mechanism by which the individual allelic variants lead to altered susceptibility or incubation periods has not been elucidated. It has been proposed that in humans PrP polymorphisms may be present at critical sites involved in the conformational transition from PrP c to PrP Sc (Glockshuber et al., 1999). The study o...

Abstract. The sensitivity and specificity of lymph node and bone marrow smear microscopy for the diagnosis of Leishmania infantum-infected dogs was evaluated in 79 dogs with leishmaniasis (Group A), 52 asymptomatically infected dogs (Group B), and 44 healthy noninfected dogs (Group C). Light microscopy examination included 10 to 1,000 oil immersion fields, and the density of Leishmania amastigotes was scored by a 0 to +6 scale. Using polymerase chain reaction as the gold standard, the specificity of lymph node and bone marrow cytology was 100%, whereas sensitivity ranged from 7.8% to 92.6%, being significantly higher in Group A compared with Group B. The amastigote scores were also significantly higher in Group A compared with Group B. These results indicate that lymph node and bone marrow cytology is a highly sensitive and specific method for the diagnosis of canine patent leishmaniasis, whereas its sensitivity is relatively low in asymptomatic infections.