Baculovirus expression and purification of peste-des-petits-ruminants virus nucleocapsid protein and its application in diagnostic assay.

Peste-des-petits-ruminants (PPR) is a contagious and highly devastating disease of small ruminants. For control of endemic PPR, adequate supply of affordable and reliable diagnostics is critical for effective surveillance, along with the use of highly efficacious live vaccines that are currently available. The nucleocapsid (N) protein of PPR virus (PPRV) is an important candidate antigen for developing specific diagnostic, as it is a major viral protein being highly immunogenic and conserved among the structural proteins. In the present study, we expressed the N protein of PPRV (Sungri/96 strain), in baculovirus expression system and purified using affinity column chromatography. The recombinant protein reacted well with PPRV anti-N monoclonal antibodies and PPRV-specific polyclonal antiserum, suggesting that the expressed protein was authentic and in native form. The recombinant protein was evaluated as antigen in the diagnostic ELISA as reference positive control in place of whole virus antigen. The utility of recombinant PPRV N protein circumvents the need to use live PPRV antigen in the routinely used diagnostics targeting 'N' protein of PPRV, thus allowing large-scale field application of the test.

Capripox outbreak in a mixed flock of sheep and goats in India.

Generally, capripoxvirus infections are host specific in nature and occasionally infect more than one species. In this study, an investigation was carried out from an outbreak of capripox in a mixed flock of sheep and goats which occurred in 2013 in the State of Jammu & Kashmir. The genetic analysis of P32, RPO30 and GPCR genes revealed that both goats and sheep were infected with goatpox virus.