Molecular epidemiology of rabies virus circulating in domestic animals in India

Rabies is a neglected viral zoonotic disease affecting humans, domestic and wild animals and is endemic in most parts of the India. Dog mediated rabies is more predominant than other forms of rabies and molecular epidemiology is poorly understood in both reservoir and susceptible hosts. In the prese...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:VirusDisease
Main Authors: Manjunatha Reddy, Gundallhalli Bayyappa, Krishnappa, Sumana, Vinayagamurthy, Balamurugan, Singh, Rajendra, Singh, Karam Pal, Saminathan, Mani, Sajjanar, Basavaraj, Rahman, Habibur
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: Springer India 2018
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Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6111947/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30159372
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13337-018-0478-9
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Summary:Rabies is a neglected viral zoonotic disease affecting humans, domestic and wild animals and is endemic in most parts of the India. Dog mediated rabies is more predominant than other forms of rabies and molecular epidemiology is poorly understood in both reservoir and susceptible hosts. In the present study, a total of 140 rabies suspected brain samples from different species of animals from different geographical regions of India were used. The samples were parallelly tested by direct fluorescent antibody test, reverse transcriptase PCR and real-time PCR. Thirty positive samples were subjected for partial nucleoprotein gene sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. On sequence and phylogenetic analysis, it was observed that all Indian rabies viruses belonged to classical rabies virus of genotype 1 of Lyssavirus and formed two distinct groups. The majority of isolates were in group-1 and are closely related to arctic/arctic like lineage, whereas group–II isolated are closely related to cosmopolitan lineage. These results indicated there is simultaneous existence of two distinct lineages of rabies viruses in Indian subcontinent. Further whole genome studies are needed for better understanding of molecular epidemiology of rabies virus circulating in animals for control and prevention of rabies in India. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s13337-018-0478-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.