Specific sequence amplification of bovine virus diarrhea virus (BVDV) and hog cholera virus and sequencing of BVDV nucleic acid.

The pestiviruses are small enveloped RNA viruses and are causative agents of economically important animal diseases in cattle, swine, sheep and goats worldwide. We used the polymerase chain reaction to amplify one common fragment of several different strains of both hog cholera virus and bovine virus diarrhea virus (BVDV). The fragment is located at the 5'-end of the genome immediately upstream of the open reading frame. This is a highly conserved region among the different published pestivirus sequences. An internal restriction digest of the amplified fragment with XhoI and PstI was performed in order to confirm specificity of the amplified fragment. The fragment was sequenced for a number of different BVDV strains, and the sequences obtained were compared to those published and used to deduce genetic relationships between strains. Apart from this common fragment we have amplified several other fragments of the Danish BVDV strain Ug59 and obtained specific amplification fragments of the expected size.