African Swine Fever Virus: Use of Genetic Markers in Analysis of Its Routes of Spread

Abstract

At present no effective measures for specific prevention and treatment of African swine fever have been developed. The control strategy for the disease is designed for rapid diagnosis of infected animals with subsequent slaughter and decontamination (stamping out). The present review deals with current epidemic situation for African swine fever and examines features of the virus genomics and genetic differentiation of the isolates. The Russian Federation has been ASF-infected since 2007. Since that time the disease has been one of the key problems in pig farming of this country inflicting great economic losses, both directly and indirectly. The disease continues to spread. In January 2014 African swine fever was introduced to Lithuania, then pervaded Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Belgium and Moldova. Since 2018 the disease outbreaks have been reported in Asia (China, Vietnam, and Mongolia). Specific structure of the virus and long genome, encoding genes with unknown function, and circulation of 24 genotypes and 9 serotypes of the virus hinder the development of ASF vaccine. The article shows that the use of many specific genetic markers during determination of relationship and study of pathways of ASF virus global spread is the most accurate method.

Isolation and Genetic Characterization of African Swine Fever Virus from Domestic Pig Farms in South Korea, 2019

“…There are two types according to the insertion: MGF-1 type without insertion and MGF-2 type with a new long insertion of 17 nucleotides (GATAGTAGTTCAGTTAA). MGF-2 type has been observed in seven Russian isolates from Vladmir and Tver regions, and in nine Polish isolates [20]. For the analysis of Korean isolates, we used a set of primers that amplified a~500 bp fragment located in the IGR of MGF 505 9R/10R.…”

“…The result showed that all Korean isolates have the characteristics of MGF-1 without insertion in this region, and the sequence of IGR of MGF 505 9R/10R was 100% identical to that of Pol16 20186 o7, Belgium 2018/1, Pig/HLJ/2018, DB/LN/2018, and China/2018/AnhuiXCGQ (Figure 4, Table 2). Recently, the MGF-3 type, which contains two identical insertions in MGF 505 9R/10R, was found in the Tver region of Russia (Tver1112/Zavi) [20]. Since the first outbreak of ASF in South Korea, we isolated 14 ASF viruses from infected domestic pig farms and all the isolates showed the ability of HAD.…”

Evaluation of different methods for preventing the African swine fever virus

“…On 24 January 2014, two cases of ASF in wild boars were found in Lithuania and later in wild boars in Latvia, Estonia, and part of Poland bordering on Belarus (Gallardo et al, 2014;Pejsak et al, 2014a;Pejsak et al, 2014b). ASF spread further in Moldova, the Czech Republic, and Romania in 2017, in Hungary, China, Belgium, and Mongolia in 2018, and further to South East Asia (Mazloum et al, 2019). Since no vaccine is available against ASF, the only way to control and eradicate the disease and the spread of the virus is based on classical disease control methods, such as surveillance, rapid detection and identification of ASF virus-specific antigens or DNA and antibodies, and stamping out of infected animals ( (Haines et al, 2013).…”

CURRENT APPROACHES TO THE VACCINE DEVELOPMENT FOR AFRICAN SWINE FEVER (review)

“…торый участвует в сборке капсида, а также генов E183L и CP204L, кодирующих соответственно структурные белки vp54 и vp30 (5,6).…”