Differentiation of infectious bursal disease virus strains using real-time RT-PCR and high resolution melt curve analysis

Abstract

Differentiation of infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) strains is crucial for effective vaccination programs and epidemiological investigations. In this study, a combination of real-time RT-PCR and high resolution melt (HRM) curve analysis was developed for simultaneous detection and differentiation of IBDV strains/isolates. The hypervariable region of VP2 gene was amplified from several IBDV strains and subjected to HRM curve analysis. The method could readily differentiate between classical vaccines/isolates and variants. Analysis of the nucleotide sequence of the amplicons from each strain revealed that each melt curve profile was related to a unique DNA sequence. The real-time RT-PCR ..