Research Article
Gholam Ali Kojouri, Mojdeh
Abstract
Caprine arthritis encephalitis virus (CAEV) is a retrovirus that naturally infects goats and induces chronic inflammatory and degenerative disease. Infection of goats has a worldwide distribution but it has not been previously recognized by molecular method in Iran. For this reason, 95 blood samples were taken from 4 months to 3 years goats to determine naturally infected animals with caprine arthritis-encephalitis virus (CAEV) by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method. The PCR primers were designed to amplify a 433 base pair region of the proviral gag gene. Results showed that 15.7 percent of sampled goats (15 cases) were positive for CAEV. The present study was confirmed the presence of CAEV genome in goats flock of Iran for the first time.