Caracterização do gene da proteína hemaglutinina do vírus da cinomose canina em cães naturalmente infectados nos estados de Mato Grosso e Rondônia

Abstract

Canine Morbillivirus (CDV) is the etiological agent of canine distemper (CC), an important disease of dogs and wild carnivores characterized by high morbidity and mortality. The hemagglutinin (H) protein present in the envelope has an important function of viral adsorption and therefore has high genetic variability in relation to the other CDV genes. For this reason, it has been used to characterize CDV strains, allowing the identification of specific strains. Given the above, the objective of the present study was to characterize the hemagglutinin (H) protein in CDV strains detected in 15 naturally infected dogs in the states of Mato Grosso and Rondônia. The samples were collected from central nervous tissue of dogs that died. They were initially submitted to RT-PCR to detect the nucleocapsid (N) gene. The positive ones were then tested to amplify the H gene. In ten samples, there was complete amplification of the H gene. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the samples were positioned in two groups: one genetically related to isolates from Uruguay and the other with strains from Brazilian strains (specifically from the states of Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul), all sequences were classified within the South America I/Europe genotype.