Abstract-It has been described recently that the nonpeptide AVE 0991 (AVE) mimics the effects of angiotensin-(1-7)[Ang-(1-7)] in bovine endothelial cells. In this study, we tested the possibility that AVE is an agonist of the

Especial conditions were developed for the amplification of five DNA segments from US region of BHV-1 by polymerase chain reaction. In order to eliminate most nonspecific products it was found that addition of three cosolvents DMSO, glycerol and NP 40 was a simple method for increasing the specificity of amplification.

One Brazilian strain of Aujeszky’s disease virus isolated from a piglet in which the disease had not been observed was studied as for its virulence in pigs. The genome of the virus was molecularly analysed as for their restriction endonuclease cleavage pattern. Fifty-day-old non-immune weanlings exposed to this strain showed no disease although the virus was present in their oropharyngeal area for at least three days. All animals developed moderate titers of neutralizing antibody. Based on number of bands and migration rate of restriction fragments the isolate was classified into Herrmann’s type I group. Latent infection was detected in all pigs by PCR. Some variations were detected in the cleavage pattern of the strain ASB Piau when compared to LA031 virulent Brazilian strain, that could be related to differences in the virulence.

A reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) in hepatic tissue was developed. To circumvent possible failures in RT-PCR amplifications, a second round of PCR with internal primers was used to confirm the specificity and increase the sensitivity of the test. Using this method specific amplification of MHV sequences was observed in 18 out of 20 mouse colonies examined.