Characterization of feline Borna disease virus

Sammanfattning: Feline Borna disease, a neurological disease of cats is an infection caused byBorna disease virus (BDV). The infection, first reported in Sweden in 1974,affects other species of animals such as horses in which the disease was firstreported. Sheep is the other natural host of the virus, but BDV infection is alsoseen in cattle, dogs, goats, donkey, and some zoo animals. The disease is widelyspeculated to be zoonotic as it is believed to affect humans as well. In Sweden, theinfection is endemic in central part of Sweden namely in the Stockholm andUppsala area, where numerous cases have been reported in the past and new casescontinue to emerge in recent times. The importance and continued incidence andprevalence of the infection in cat prompted this present study. Archive andincoming samples from cats, horses and dogs were screened by real- time RTPCR.Eight positive cat samples were detected by real-time RT-PCR. Three ofthese samples were used for virus isolation and characterization, while two otherpositive samples were used to test previously described primers. In conclusion, wehave been able to detect eight positive samples from the cat by real-time RT-PCR.Though the virus was not detected upon sub-passages in vero cells, demonstrationof presence of the virus from passage 10-12 in the positive control show that otherfactors than the assay may have contributed to the lack of virus isolation Theclassical PCR for molecular epidemiology needs further optimization as reflectedin the fact that only three primer pairs seem to work with the C6BDV control