Detection and genetic characterization of canine parvoviruses and coronaviruses in southern Ireland

Abstract

Canine parvovirus (CPV) and canine coronavirus (CCoV) are considered the main pathogens responsible for acute gastroenteritis in dogs. From a collection of 250 samples, seven CPV strains and three CCoV strains were identified in symptomatic Irish dogs. Samples were screened for the viruses using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and typed via DNA sequence analysis. Three CPV strains were characterized as CPV-2a, while four others were characterized as CPV-2b. To date, CPV-2c remains unreported in Ireland. Two CCoV strains were characterized as CCoV-II and one as CCoV-I. In the case of one sample, PH4/09/Ire, a mixed infection with CPV and CCoV was detected.

Fig. 1

Maximum-parsimony tree based on partial VP2 gene nucleotide sequences of CPVs described in this study and reference strains

Fig. 2

Phylogenetic tree based on partial S gene nucleotide sequences of CCoVs described in this study and reference strains. Evolutionary history was assessed using the maximum-likelihood method based on the Tamura-Nei model [48]. Sequence alignments were performed using MUSCLE [49]. The tree with the highest log likelihood (-3027.2510) is shown. The percentage of replicate trees in which the associated taxa clustered together in the bootstrap test (1,000 replicates) is shown next to the branches. The tree is drawn to scale, with branch lengths measured in the number of substitutions per site. The analysis involved 13 nucleotide sequences. All ambiguous positions were removed for each sequence pair