Characterisation of p20 gene sequences from a border disease-like pestivirus isolated from pigs.

A pestivirus, isolated from pigs with haemorrhagic lesions, was antigenically more similar to border disease (BD) virus than to either hog cholera (HC) or bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) viruses. After reverse transcription the genome at the 5' end, along with the same region from a BD isolate from sheep, was amplified by the polymerase chain reaction and cloned. The region of the p20 gene was sequenced and compared with published data for BVD and HC viruses. A number of motifs were conserved in the amino acid sequences of all the viruses. The pig isolate had a greater degree of homology in this region with the BD isolate (87%) than with BVD (73%) or HC (74%) viruses. This further confirms the BD-like nature of the virus.