Background
EHV-1 is one of the most serious viral pathogens that frequently cause abortion in horses around the world. However, so far, relatively little information is available on EHV-1 infections as they occur in China. In January 2021, during an abortion storm which occurred in Yili horses at the Chinese State Studs of Zhaosu (North Xinjiang, China), 43 out of 800 pregnant mares aborted.
Results
PCR detection revealed the presence of EHV-1 in all samples as the possible cause of all abortions, although EHV-4, EHV-2 and EHV-5 were also found to circulate in the aborted fetuses. Furthermore, the partial ORF33 sequences of the 43 EHV-1 shared 99.3–100% and 99.0–100% similarity in nucleotide and amino acid sequences respectively. These sequences not only indicated a highly conserved region but also allowed the strains to group into six clusters. In addition, based on the predicted ORF30 nucleotide sequence, it was found that all the strains carried a guanine at the 2254 nucleotide position (aspartic acid at position 752 of the viral DNA polymerase) and were, therefore, identified as neuropathogenic strains.
Conclusion
This study is the first one that establishes EHV-1 as the cause of abortions in Yili horses, of China. Further characterization of the ORF30 sequences revealed that all the EHV-1 strains from the study carried the neuropathogenic genotype. Totally, neuropathogenic EHV-1 infection in China’s horse population should be concerned although the virus only detected in Yili horse abortions.
The identification and characterization of bovine viral diarrhea virus 2 (BVDV-2) strain SD-06 isolated from cattle in China is reported. We performed sequence analysis of 5'-untranslated region (5'-UTR) and E2 sequences and the identity at the nucleotide and amino acid level indicated that the isolate was closely related to BVDV-2. The BVDV-2 strain New York'93 showed the highest sequence homology with the isolate SD-06. The phylogenetic analysis revealed that the isolate SD-06 belonged to BVDV-2a subtype. Furthermore, immunofluorescence assay with the monoclonal antibody specific for BVDV-2 glycoprotein E2 confirmed this identification. Thus, the strain SD-06 was the first isolate of BVDV-2 identified in China.
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