RT-PCR detection of lentiviruses in milk or mammary secretions of sheep or goats from infected flocks

Caroline Leroux (1) , C. Lerondelle (1) , J. Chastang (1) , Jean-Francois Mornex (1)

1 INSERM CJF 93-08, Laboratoire d'immunologie et de biologie pulmonaire

In this study we evaluated a reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique for detecting lentiviral infection in milk or mammary secretions from small ruminants. Initial observations on seven goats infected with cloned caprine arthritis-encephalitis virus (CAEV) showed that RT-PCR on milk cells is as reliable as coculture for detecting viral infection, and is quicker and simpler. With a suitable choice of redundant primers followed by a semi-nested amplification, it proved possible to detect the virus in milk samples from naturally infected French sheep (8/8) or goats (9/9), and viral sub-groups could be identified by hybridization with discriminatory probes. All seropositive animals gave positive amplifications, as did one seronegative goat from a contaminated herd, suggesting greater sensitivity for RT-PCR. None of eight goats from a long-established seronegative herd ever gave a positive RT-PCR amplification. This technique provides a simple means for rapidly identifying potentially infectious animals and for epidemiological investigations, as long as the primers are selected according to the genetic structure of the local viral population.

Mots clés: Animal; Arthritis-Encephalitis Virus; Caprine/genetics/*isolation & purification; Base Sequence; DNA Primers; Female; Genome; Viral; *Goat Diseases; Goats; Lentivirus/genetics/*isolation & purification; Lentivirus Infections/diagnosis/*veterinary; Mammae/secretion/*virology; Milk/*virology; Molecular Sequence Data; Polymerase Chain Reaction/methods/*veterinary; Sheep; *Sheep Diseases; Support; Non-U.S. Gov't

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Caroline Leroux, C. Lerondelle, J. Chastang, Jean-Francois Mornex. RT-PCR detection of lentiviruses in milk or mammary secretions of sheep or goats from infected flocks. Veterinary Research, 1997, 28 (2), pp.115-121. ⟨hal-01600213⟩