DETECTION OF CANINE PARVOVIRUS DNA IN PARAFFIN-EMBEDDED TISSUES BY POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION

Canine Parvovirus (CPV) is seemingly a 'new' virus which suddenly appe ared during the mid-1970's in an epizootic of disease in dogs. The vir us is very similar to the feline panleukopenia virus (FPV), and recent studies have underlined the possible emergence of CPV as a variant of a virus from some other carnivore-possibly from FPV (Parrish, 1990). Several conserved amino-acid changes between CPV and FPV isolates have been defined by cloning and sequencing the capsid-protein gene. An al ternative to cloning and sequencing the entire capsid-protein gene wou ld be to use PCR amplification of short regions of the gene containing the appropriate variable amino-acid codons. In addition, use of PCR w ould also facilitate the study of virus samples which cannot be recove red as infectious agents, e.g. after having undergone formalaldehyde f ixation and paraffin-embedding procedures. This study reports on the a mplification of CPV DNA from 15-year-old tissue sections which have be en prepared by formaldehyde or paraformaldehyde-lysine-periodate-gluta raldehyde fixation, using PCR with various primer pairs within the cap sid-protein gene of CPV.