Orf virus circulation in cattle in Turkey

• Published in: Comparative immunology, microbiology and infectious diseases microbiology and infectious diseases, 2019-08, Vol.65, p.1-6
• Main Author: Şevik, Murat
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amino acid sequence; B2L gene; Bovidae; Cattle; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; Gene sequencing; Goats; Infections; Lesions; Lumpy skin disease; Nucleotide sequence; Nucleotides; Orf; Orf virus; Outbreaks; Parapoxvirus; Polymerase chain reaction; Primers; Sheep; Skin disease; Skin diseases; Turkey; Viral envelope proteins; Viruses; Zoonoses
• ISSN: 0147-9571; 1878-1667
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cimid.2019.03.013

•The present study reports unusual infection in cattle with ORFV.•In the present outbreaks, overall morbidity rate was 15.5% but there was no mortality.•ORFV isolates from cattle shared 100% deduced amino acid homology with previously characterised Turkish field ORFV isolates (Konya/2016-ORFV-1 and Aksaray/2016-ORFV2) from goats in 2016. Orf virus (ORFV) causes contagious skin disease that mainly affects sheep and goats with zoonotic potential. However, there is not enough information about the association between ORFV and occurrence of skin disease in cattle. The present study describes outbreaks of ORFV infection in cattle in different provinces that are located in the Aegean, Central Anatolian and Mediterranean regions of Turkey. During the months of June and August 2017, vesicular fluid and scab samples were collected from cattle which had proliferative skin lesions. First, presence of lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV) and bovine herpesvirus 2 (BoHV-2, known as the causative agent of pseudo-lumpy skin disease) were investigated by real time PCR and PCR, respectively. Then, samples tested for the presence of parapoxviruses by PCR using primers specific to major envelope protein gene (B2L). Parapoxvirus DNA was detected in investigated samples whereas LSDV and BoHV-2 DNA were not detected. The analysis of the B2L gene sequences revealed that cattle were infected with ORFV. The isolates in the present study shared 100% sequence identity at the nucleotide and amino acid level when compared with previously characterised Turkish field ORFV isolates from goats in 2016. Results of the study show unusual infection of cattle with ORFV, and suggest that ORFV jumps the host species barrier from goats to cattle.