Diagnosis of viral skin diseases of ruminans in Romania

Differents viral species cause skin lesions in domestic ruminants, among all notifiable FMDV, BTV and poxviruses but also parapoxviruses (PPVs), Herpesvirus and Papillomavirus. The clinical aspect of skin disorders lead to frequent cases of misdiagnosis with possible severe consequences in terms of economic impact and zoonotic transmition. The possibility to identify the viral agents responsable of skin lesions with rapid direct method could help the definitive diagnosis. In the last years, in Romania the most common skin diseases affecting the domestic ruminanants are mainly those caused by PPVs ., Orf virus (OV), the prototype of PPV genus, affected the adult goats and the kids, with lesions localised in the mouth area, legs and on in the hudder. Cattle are frequently found to be affected with viruses causing multiple skin lesions spread all over the body traditionally defined as papilomatosis. To identify the etiological agents causing cutaneos diseases in domestic ruminants from Romania, skin and scab samples have been collected from affected cattle and goats respectively. The animals were farmed in two different locations Iasi and Botosani. PCR has been performed on DNA extracted from either skin or scabs, in particular for the identification of PPVs a fragment of the conserved gene B2L has been amplified using primers PPPI and IV while for the detection of bovine papillomavirus we used FAP59 and FAP64 primers targeted to the conserved L1 gene of Human papillomavirus (HPV) but able to amplify a broad spectrum of papillomavirus species. Our results showed that the skin lesions found in goats were caused by PPV and subsequent sequencing demonstrated orf virus as the causative agent. The PCR performed on bovine lesions confirmed the presence of Bovine papillomavirus DNA. This study demonstrated that PCR can be effective for a rapid identification of viral agents responsible of skin diseases of ruminants. This technique is also useful as a starting point for genomic characterization of virus strains circulating in Romani