Biotypic characterisation of bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in clinical samples.

ABSTRACT

In this study, bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) was detected and bio-typically characterised in clinical samples using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The RT-PCR technique produced two different amplicons (402 and approx. 680 bp in size) in case of the presence of both biotypes (cp and ncp) in the sample. The mixture of the biotypes as detected by RT-PCR was verified by the immunoplaque assay (IPA). Purification of biotypes was carried out by native plaque isolation and subsequent RT-PCR revealed single products (402 or approx. 680 bp in size) in each clone. The results showed that RT-PCR can be used for accurate molecular differentiation between the BVDV biotypes.