Comparison of three velogenic strains of Newcastle disease virus by RNA oligonucleotide fingerprinting.

The purified RNA from three velogenic strains of Newcastle disease virus (Ca-1083 [Fontana], Largo, and Texas GB) was analyzed by oligonucleotide fingerprinting. An image-processing system used to manipulate and rescale autoradiographs to uniform dimensions assisted the manual comparison of RNA fingerprints. Based on this analysis, the fingerprints of the Largo and Ca-1083 viscerotropic strains were more similar to each other than either virus was to the Texas GB neurotropic strain. By contrast, the Largo and Texas GB strains displayed more differences in the pattern of RNA fragment migration than other strain comparisons. Fingerprint comparisons were also performed between velogenic and previously reported lentogenic strains of NDV. No large RNA fragments were identified as NDV-specific or virulence-specific. This study evaluates the relationships among these NDV strains.