DETECTION OF AVIAN REOVIRUS RNA AND COMPARISON OF A PORTION OF GENOMESEGMENT S3 BY POLYMERASE-CHAIN-REACTION AND RESTRICTION ENZYME FRAGMENT LENGTH POLYMORPHISM

A reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was establi shed to amplify a 672-base pairs fragment on the segment S3 of avian r eovirus (ARV). The amplified fragments were detected in nine strains o f ARV as well as three tendon tissue specimens, indicating that the pr imer regions were well conserved. The RT-PCR was able to detect as low as 0.2 pg using an ethidium bromide stained gel. The detection limit could be enhanced further to 0.04 pg by hybridisation after southern t ransfer. The amplified DNA fragments from nine ARV strains and two tis sue specimens showed different restriction enzyme cleavage patterns. A nalysis of the data revealed that these 11 strains were classified int o four groups. The results suggest that PCR followed by restriction en zyme analysis may provide a simple and rapid method for the characteri sation of ARV isolates.