Molecular techniques in foot-and-mouth disease epidemiology

摘要

The study of the epidemiology of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has been revolutionized by the introduction of molecular biological techniques that can establish genetic relationships between the causative viruses. Early biochemical techniques such as sodiumododecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), electrofocusing and ribonuclease T1 oligonucleotide mapping were used to augment traditional antigenic comparisons to relate different FMD virus isolates and strains. FMD epidemiology using nucleotide sequencing has been studied since 1987, and there is an accumulated database of nearly 1500 partial VP1 sequences representing all seven serotypes of the virus.