Hydropericardium syndrome (HPS), caused by the Fowl adenovirus 4 (FAdV-4) has led to significant financial losses for the poultry industry globally, including Pakistan over the past few years. Conventional serological methods are time consuming, laborious and less sensitive therefore, a rapid and sensitive ELISA kit is required for the reliable detection of FAdV-4 infection. In the current research, fiber proteins (1 &2) of FAdV-4 were successfully expressed in Escherichia coli and purified using metal affinity chromatography.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFoot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious and economically devastating viral disease of livestock and is endemic in much of Asia, including Pakistan. Vaccination is used to control disease outbreaks and sensitive diagnostic methods which can differentiate infected animals from vaccinated animals (DIVA) are essential for monitoring the effectiveness of disease control programmes. Tests based on the detection of the non-structural protein (NSP) 3ABC are reliable indicators of virus replication in infected and vaccinated populations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe detection of antibody to non-structural protein (NSP) of Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is the reliable diagnostic method for differentiating infected from vaccinated animals (DIVA). For this purpose, the detection of antibodies to non-structural 3ABC protein is suitable for identification of virus activity in the animals exposed to FMDV infection. However, large-scale production of recombinant 3ABC protein is challenging due to the formation of inclusion bodies in Escherichia coli and low yield due to protein aggregation during in vitro refolding.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study reports the molecular characterization of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh, Pakistan during 2014-17. FMDV genome was detected in 42 and 41 out of 46 samples (epithelial tissue and saliva) by reverse transcriptase loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), respectively. Sequences of the complete VP1 coding region of the samples (n = 33) was achieved showing that 10, 4 and 19 samples belonged to serotype O, A and Asia1 respectively.
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