Molecular characterization of feline calicivirus variants from multicat household and public animal shelter in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

The aim of this study was to perform the molecular characterization of conserved and variable regions of feline calicivirus capsid genome in order to investigate the molecular diversity of variants in Brazilian cat population. Twenty-six conjunctival samples from cats living in five public short-term animal shelters and three multicat life-long households were analyzed. Fifteen cats had conjunctivitis, three had oral ulceration, eight had respiratory signs (cough, sneeze and nasal discharge) and nine were asymptomatic. Feline calicivirus were isolated in CRFK cells and characterized by reverse transcription PCR target to both conserved and variable regions of open reading frame 2. The amplicons obtained were sequenced. A phylogenetic analysis along with most of the prototypes available in GenBank database and an amino acid analysis were performed. Phylogenetic analysis based on both conserved and variable region revealed two clusters with an aLTR value of 1.00 and 0.98 respectively and the variants from this study belong to feline calicivirus genogroup I. No association between geographical distribution and/or clinical signs and clustering in phylogenetic tree was observed. The variants circulating in public short-term animal shelter demonstrated a high variability because of the relatively rapid turnover of carrier cats constantly introduced of multiple viruses into this location over time.

Prevalence of feline calicivirus and the distribution of serum neutralizing antibody against isolate strains in cats of Hangzhou, China

“…Strains isolated in China and Japan formed a single subgroup, which may be due to their geographical proximity [ 26 ]. However, an association between geographical distribution and clustering in the phylogenetic tree was not observed, which is in accordance with the findings in previous studies [ 15 27 28 ]. The observation that inactivated viruses does not shed following vaccination is generally corroborated by the absence of an FCV-255-like strain in the phylogeny tree.…”

Genetic Characterization of Feline Calicivirus From China Reveals That Amino Acid Mutations at 441-443 in The ORF2 E Region Are Related to Pathogenicity

“…We did not nd any evidence for temporal or spatial association between FCV from the same area and this was consistent with previous reports [16,19,25]. The 17 Chinese isolates were distributed across different provinces and the homology for each strain was not signi cantly related to its location and time of isolation.…”

Investigation of Feline calicivirus infection in cats with upper respiratory tract disease in Diyarbakir, Turkey

“…FCV reportedly causes stomatitis, oral ulceration, ocular and nasal discharge, conjunctivitis, pyrexia, lameness, anorexia, hypersalivation, pneumonia, breathing difficulties, coughing, and depression in cats (Radford et al, 2001;Radford et al, 2009;Tian et al, 2016;Pereira et al, 2018). Oral lesions, hypersalivation, ocular and nasal discharge, coughing, respiratory distress, and gingivitis were seen in cats with URTD that constitute the material of this study.…”

“…The infection by calicivirus leads to stomatitis, oral ulceration, ocular and nasal discharge, conjunctivitis, pyrexia, lameness, anorexia, hypersalivation, pneumonia, respiratory distress, coughing, and depression in cats (Radford et al, 1997;Radford et al, 2009;Pereira et al, 2018). In addition to these clinical findings, a virulent systemic disease (VSD) has also been reported, which occurs in the form of outbreaks in co-living cats, has a high mortality, and causes systemic febrile disease (Coyne et al, 2006;Battilani et al, 2013;Meli et al, 2018).…”