Differentiation of Indian Isolates of Equine Herpes Virus (EH V-1) by Restriction Endonuclease Digestion

397-400The genome of five local isolates of EHV -1 (Hisar-90-7, Jind-96, Tohana-96-2, Delhi-98 and Raj-98) and one reference strain 592 was digested with different restriction endonucleases (RE). On electrophoresis of digested DNA in 0.8% agarose gel, Raj-98 could be differentiated from other viral isolates using BamHI and KpnI. Reference strain (592) differed from other viruses in RE profile of HindIII (one band of ~3500 bp lacking) and Xbal (2 bands of ~4800 and ~2900 bp missing). This study indicates that at least two genetically variant isolates of EHV-1 are circulating amongst the equines of northern India.