REGULAR ARTICLES Detection and molecular characterization of naturally transmitted sheep associated malignant catarrhal fever in cattle in India Richa Sood & Rekha Khandia & Sandeep Bhatia & Divakar Hemadri & Manoj Kumar & Sharan S. Patil & Atul K. Pateriya & Arshi Siddiqui & Malkanna Sanjeev Kumar & Mudalagiri Dasappa Venkatesha & Diwakar D. Kulkarni Accepted: 1 May 2014 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract Malignant catarrhal fever (MCF) is a fatal herpes- virus infection of domestic and wild ruminants, with a short and dramatic clinical course characterized primarily by high fever, severe depression, swollen lymph nodes, salivation, diarrhea, dermatitis, neurological disorders, and ocular lesions often leading to blindness. In the present study, fatal clinical cases of sheep associated malignant catarrhal fever (SA-MCF) were identified in cattle in the state of Karnataka. These cases were initially presented with symptoms of diarrhea, respirato- ry distress, conjunctivitis, and nasal discharges. Laboratory diagnosis confirmed the detection of ovine herpesvirus-2 (OvHV-2) genome in the peripheral blood samples of two ailing animals. The blood samples collected subsequently from sheep of the neighboring areas also showed presence of OvHV-2 genome indicating a nidus of infection in the region. The positive test results were further confirmed by nucleotide sequencing of the OIE approved portion of tegu- ment gene as well as complete ORF8 region of the OvHV-2 genome. Phylogenetic analysis based on the sequence of the latter region indicated close genetic relationship with other OvHV-2 reported elsewhere in the world. Keywords Cattle . Genomic detection . India . Ovine herpesvirus . Malignant catarrhal fever Introduction Malignant catarrhal fever (MCF) is a fatal lympho- proliferative disease of cattle and other ungulates caused by the herpesviruses belonging to the genus Macavirus of sub- family Gammaherpesvirinae in family Herpesviridae (Davison et al. 2009). Presently, there are six members of the Macaviruses that are associated with clinical MCF (Cunha et al. 2009). Alcelaphine herpesvirus-1 (AlHV-1) is the first identified MCF virus (Plowright et al. 1960), which persists as a subclinical infection in wildebeest (Connochaetes sp.), and is the causative agent of wildebeest-associated MCF (Plowright 1990). The ovine herpesvirus-2 (OvHV-2) is en- demic in domestic sheep worldwide and causes sheep- associated MCF (SA-MCF) in susceptible ruminants. Although, these viruses cause inapparent infection in their reservoir hosts (AlHV-1 in wildebeest and OvHV-2 in sheep), they cause fatal lympho-proliferative disease when they infect MCF-susceptible hosts, including cattle (Crawford et al. 2002), deer (Foyle et al. 2009), bison (Schultheiss et al. 2000), water buffalo (Teankam et al. 2006), and pigs (Albini et al. 2003). MCF is an important disease wherever reservoir and MCF-susceptible species mix and has been reported to be a particular problem in Bali cattle in Indonesia and bison in the USA (Russell et al. 2009). Globally SA-MCF has been re- cently reported from a number of countries e.g., Turkey (Yesilbag et al. 2011 ; Yildirim et al. 2012 ), Japan (Giangaspero et al. 2013), Croatia (Turk et al. 2010), Saudi Arabia (Abu Elzein et al. 2003), etc. There have been recent reports of SA-MCF spreading to pigs also (Wessels et al. 2011). The disease was first time reported in India in 1975 on the basis of histopathology (Parihar et al. 1975), and then R. Sood (*) : R. Khandia : S. Bhatia : M. Kumar : A. K. Pateriya : A. Siddiqui : D. D. Kulkarni High Security Animal Disease Laboratory, Anand Nagar, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India e-mail: richa.bhatia0609@gmail.com D. Hemadri : S. S. Patil Project Directorate on Animal Disease Monitoring and Surveillance, Hebbal, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India M. S. Kumar : M. D. Venkatesha Institute of Animal health and Veterinary Biologicals, Southern Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, Hebbal, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India Trop Anim Health Prod DOI 10.1007/s11250-014-0611-8