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Maedi in slaughtered sheep: A pathology and polymerase chain reaction study in southwestern Iran

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Abstract

Maedi-visna (MV) is an important slow viral disease of sheep leading to a progressive lymphoproliferative disease. It affects multiple organs primarily the lungs, where it causes interstitial pneumonia (maedi). In this study, the lungs of 1,000 sheep carcasses were grossly inspected and those suspected to have maedi were studied at histopathological and molecular levels. A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique that amplified a 291-base pair DNA in the long terminal repeat (LTR) sequence of MV provirus was conducted on all the 50 suspected lungs together with 10 normal appearing lungs as controls. Amplicons of the expected size were detected in 11 (n = 11/50) suspected sheep, and one of the 10 control sheep. Histopathologic study of the pulmonary lesions of all 11 (n = 11/11) positive sheep showed MV lesions, including hyperplasia of the perivascular and peribronchiolar lymphoid cells, interstitial lymphoplasmacytic infiltration and smooth muscle hyperplasia and the histopathologic findings were correlated with PCR results. In contrast, the tissue sections of control animals were almost normal at histopathological level; however, PCR technique demonstrated that one of them was affected by maedi. This study showed that the LTR-PCR had high specificity and sensitivity in diagnosis of this viral infection. This study is the first to evaluate the prevalence of MV virus infection in sheep in Iran.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Islamic Azad University, Shahrekord Branch, Shahrekord, Iran

    Shahrzad Azizi

  2. Department of Microbiology, School of Basic Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Shahrekord Branch, Shahrekord, Iran

    Elahe Tajbakhsh

  3. Graduated of Veterinary Medicine, Islamic Azad University, Shahrekord Branch, Shahrekord, Iran

    Farzad Fathi

  4. Department of Veterinary Pathology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

    Ahmad Oryan

  5. Department of Microbiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Islamic Azad University, Shahrekord Branch, Shahrekord, Iran

    Hassan Momtaz

  6. Department of Clinical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Islamic Azad University, Shahrekord Branch, Shahrekord, Iran

    Mehdi Goodarzi

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  1. Shahrzad Azizi
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  2. Elahe Tajbakhsh
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  3. Farzad Fathi
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  4. Ahmad Oryan
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  5. Hassan Momtaz
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Correspondence to Shahrzad Azizi.

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Azizi, S., Tajbakhsh, E., Fathi, F. et al. Maedi in slaughtered sheep: A pathology and polymerase chain reaction study in southwestern Iran. Trop Anim Health Prod 44, 113–118 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-011-9896-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-011-9896-z

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