Investigation of the replication capacity of lumpy skin disease virus in ticks / Ahmed Abdelhaleem Ahmed ; Supervised Ausama Abdelraouf A. Yousif , Ibrahim Mohammed Elsabagh , Adel Abdelazem Fayed

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

Lumpy skin disease (LSD) is a highly contagious transboundary diseaseof cattle with major economic losses. Mechanical transmission of LSDV is well documented; however, evidence of transovarian and transstadial transmission in tick warrants an investigation into the replication capacity of the virus in ticks. Adult female ticks were collected from LSD clinically disease cattle. LSDV- specific PCR was used to detect LSDV in tick extracts. PCR-positivetick extracts were subjected to a modified RT-PCR assay to detect the polyadenylated LSDV DNA polymerase mRNA. Metagenomics analysis using MinIon technology was used to generate LSDV sequences and to investigate relative abundance of LSDV sequences in the sampled tick population compared to other known microorganisms detected. Our study reported that the results of modified RT-PCR in combination with the data generated using metagenomics analysis provided additional support to the hypothesis that LSDV can replicate in ticks and, warrants further investigation into the replication capacity of LSDV in ticks

Issued also as CD