Rapid detection of hog cholera virus in tissues by the polymerase chain reaction.

A rapid method for the detection of hog cholera virus (HCV) in infected tissues, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was developed. Total RNA isolated from HCV-infected tissues was reverse transcribed with AMV reverse transcriptase and the resulting complementary DNA was amplified by Taq DNA polymerase in the presence of two HCV-specific primers. The amplified DNA fragment was detected by agarose gel electrophoresis. The sensitivity of this method was at 10(4) TCID50 of HCV. The sensitivity increased approximately 1000-fold when the DNA was reamplified with a set of nested primers. DNA sequencing analysis of the PCR products revealed that the HCV sequence amplified from a local field isolate was highly homologous to the HCV Alfort strain. This method may be useful for pathological and epidemiological studies of HCV in pigs.