Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Veterinary Medicine - Department of Virology

Equid Herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) is the most important virus causing pathological disorders in horses. It causes recurrent outbreaks of abortion and neurological disorders with high mortality in Arabian horses in Egypt. As EHV1 is a very contagious disease, rapid and accurate diagnosis is important to broaden our understanding of EHV-1 in the field and implement proper preventive and control measures. Samples were collected from sixty six clinical cases over a period from 2016 to 2019. All samples originated from Arabian horse studs with respiratory, abortigenic and neurological outbreaks in Cairo and Giza governorates. EHV1 was diagnosed preliminarily in these clinical cases by immunohistochemistry using monoclonal antibody against EHV1 glycoprotein B and then by molecular detection using real time PCR which diagnosed EHV-1infection in twenty five samples within short time in less than three hours including DNA preparation. Molecular characterization of glycoprotein B (gB, ORF33) gene was applied for confirmation.Molecular characterization revealed that genetically identical EHV-1 strains were still circulating in Egypt.These strains were closely related to the European EHV-1 strains. Furthermore, EHV-1 sequences from this study showed little or no differences for the amino acid{u2019}s sequences compared to previously published sequences.This study would be valuable for monitoring of EHV-1 infection in Egypt and determining the gB gene sequence of newly identified EHV-1 field strains which is the most conserved region in the viral DNA and frequently used as a target for diagnostic PCR protocols for the future outbreaks

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