Early Detection of Oncogenic and Pathogenic Serotype I Marek's Disease Virus
Marek's disease is one of the most important infectious diseases in poultry farm, but still there are lack of effective methods for diagnosing it. A polymerase chain reaction(PCR) assay based on primers flanking meq gene of oncogenic MDV1 (J-l strain) was developed. These primers amplified a 1.15kb nucleotide band from oncogenic strain J-1 and a 1.0kb band from non-oncogenic strains(MD11/75c, CVI988). The MDV1 specific primers didn't amplify MDV2(SB-1) and HVT(Fc-126) DNA. Dot blot of the PCR products showed that the products of strains J-1,MD11/75c and CVI988 could hybridize with meq gene probe (labeled by digoxigenin). Mixing the J-1 DNA with CVI988 DNA as template, the results indicated the primers could amplify the two bands(1.15kb and 1.0kb) from the mixture, these primers can also amplify meq gene from MSB1 cell line and also from blood and tumor samples of J-l infected chickens. Therefore, using this primer, we can distinguish between oncogenic and non-oncogenic strain of MDV1.