Genotypic characteristics of Bovine viral diarrhea virus 2 strains isolated in northern Italy

Two strains of Bovine viral diarrhea virus 2 (BVDV-2) were isolated from ca lves in northern Italy. Variations in the 5'-untranslated region (UTR) of t he genome were studied by primary structure alignment and neighbor-joining method based phylogenetic tree analyses and by palindromic nucleotide subst itutions at the three variable loci in the 5'-UTR. Genetic analysis indicat ed their appurtenance to genovar BVDV-2a. Nucleotide sequence at the 5'-UTR of strain BS-95-II, one of the Italian isolates from healthy calves, showe d 98% homology to that of the Japanese isolate OY89, a cytopathic strain de rived from cattle with mucosal disease.