RESEARCH ARTICLE


Glycoprotein C Gene of Caprine Herpesvirus Type 1 Contains Short Sequence Repeats (SSR)



Elvira Tarsitano, Michele Camero, Anna Lucia Bellacicco, Nicola Decaro, Vito Martella, Canio Buonavoglia, Maria Tempesta*
Department of Veterinary Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari, Bari, Italy


© Tarsitano et al.; Licensee Bentham Open.

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Veterinary Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari, Str. Prov. Casamassima Km 3, 70010, Valenzano, Bari, Italy; Tel: +39-080-4679838; Fax: +39-080-4679843; E-mail: m.tempesta@veterinaria.uniba.it


Abstract

Caprine herpesvirus 1 (CpHV-1) is responsible for vaginal and respiratory disease in goats. Infection by vaginal route is usually restricted to the genital tract whereas by nasal route the virus can spread throughout the body. In order to evaluate genomic diversity, nucleotide sequences of glycoprotein C (gC) of 13 (n.8 vaginal, n.5 nasal) CpHV-1 strains were analyzed. Amino acid (aa) sequences showed a variable number of short sequence repeats (SSR). Nucleotide and amino acid sequences of amplified products showed to contain a variable number of short sequence repeats among the examined strains. These results indicated that CpHV-1 isolates had genetic diversity in the gC gene regarding the number of SSR: 4 SSR of 60 bp in one strain, 2 SSR of 30 bp in seven strains and 1 SSR of 15 bp in three strains. Two strains had no SSR.

Keywords: Short sequence repeats, genetic diversity, glycoprotein C, caprine herpesvirus 1..