Acta Vet. Brno 2019, 88: 361-367

https://doi.org/10.2754/avb201988040361

Quantification of bovine viral diarrhoea virus ribonucleic acid in serum of infected animals by one-step reverse transcriptase quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction

Věra Fichtelová, Kamil Kovařčík

Veterinary Research Institute, Department of Virology, Brno, Czech Republic

Received March 25, 2019
Accepted October 29, 2019

Bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) can cause either acute transient or persistent infection. Identification and removal of persistently infected animals from infected herds is a crucial component to control BVDV infection. Only limited data on serum virus concentration in infected animals are available to date. Using one-step reverse transcriptase quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, we quantified the serum viral load in 40 BVDV infected animals. To control nucleic acid extraction, complementary DNA synthesis and polymerase chain reaction amplification, each serum sample was spiked with a known small amount of reference canine coronavirus. Detected ribonucleic acid copy number ranged from 2.2 × 106 to 7.4 × 108 per 1 ml of serum of persistently infected animals and from 6.6 × 104 to 3.3 × 107 of transiently infected animals. These findings support the idea that it is impossible to accurately distinguish between transiently and persistently infected animals just from a single blood sample. To use this testing as a means of declining costs of BVDV control programmes cannot be recommended and paired serum samples have to be investigated to confirm persistent infection.

Funding

This work was supported by grant No. QI101A094 from the Ministry of Agriculture and by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (project LO1218 under NPU-I program).

References

22 live references