Abstract of research

Molecular characterization of a recent Newcastle disease virus outbreak in Egypt

Gabr. F. El-Bagoury1, Ehab. M. El-Nahas1, Mahmoud. M. Abd-El-Monem2, Mohamed. A. AboElkhair2

Abstract

Newcastle disease (ND) is a highly contagious viral disease and is a continuous threat to the poultry industry worldwide. In the early months of 2014, several devastating ND outbreaks affecting broilers had been occurred in Sharqia province, Egypt. The fusion gene of the isolated Newcastle disease virus (NDV) was partially amplified by RT-PCR, then directly sequenced. The NDV isolates were found to have the motif 112RRQKRF117. This motif and the intracerebral pathogenicity index (ICPI) are indicative of the velogenic nature of these NDV isolates. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the new NDV strain belongs to the lineage 2 genotype ІІ and is closely related to the Egyptian strain VRCLU/Giza/2009. Based on the high nucleotide similarity between our isolated NDV isolates and the Egyptian NDV strain, the origin of these recent NDV isolates might be from Egypt.