Infection of Borna disease virus in healthy animals in northern China

• Published in: Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Medicine
• Main Authors: Ai-xia Zhai, Ai-mei Li, Wu-qi Song, Wen-ping Kao, Jun Qian, Yu-jun Li, Qing-meng Zhang, Le-le Cui, Tong Bu, Han-xu Zhang, Feng-min Zhang
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2018
• Subjects: Borna disease virus; Horse; Sheep; Northern China; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.4103/1995-7645.243097; https://doaj.org/article/62afbfd856ad41839e9ec52a4bf52e58

Borna disease virus (BDV) is a non-segmented, single negative stranded RNA virus. It is highly neurotropic, but the infection is not cytopathic to the infected cells. BDV is widely infected in vertebrates, causing abnormal behavior and multiple pathological changes. Horses and sheep are the main natural hosts of BDV. Borna disease (BD) is characterized by progressive mononuclear encephalomyelitis. The BD clinical manifestations include ataxia, depression, rotation movement, mandatory standing, hitting objects with body and paralysis, and they usually last for 1-3 weeks. BDV infection causes a significant health problem in animals and economic loss for the society. However, BDV natural infection frequency in the raised animals in northern China, is poorly understood, but is required for understanding BDV infection epidemiology. BDV infection can be diagnosed through detecting viral proteins, antibodies and nucleic acid. The fluorescence based quantitative PCR is commonly used for BDV diagnosis because of the superior sensitivity. The assays for detecting plasma BDV specific antibodies include immunofluorescence, Western Blot and ELISA. Western Blot offers comparatively high specificity, which can detect different antibodies on the same blot/strip, and is often used as the confirmatory assay. This study investigated the infection prevalence of BDV in the meadow that raised horses and sheep in northern China. Blood samples were collected from a herd of healthy horses and sheep that were meadow raised in Hailin City, Heilongjiang Province, China. The uncoagulated blood samples were used to isolate peripheral lymphocytes and plasma. We selected Mongolian horses which are stocky, with relatively short but strong legs and a large head. The selected Han sheep is relatively small, has short tail and weighs 35-45 kg on average. BDV p40 mRNA was detected by Taqman based quantitative RT-PCR in lymphocytes of horses and sheep. BDV His-phosphoprotein (P) and His-nucleoprotein (N) fusion proteins were isolated with Histidine ...