Molecular detection of feline leukemia virus in clinically ill cats in Klang Valley, Malaysia

Vet World Vol.14 February-2021 Article-11

Research Article

Veterinary World, 14(2): 405-409

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2021.405-409

Kunambiga Mummoorthy¹, Abd Rahaman Yasmin^2,3, Siti Suri Arshad⁴, Abdul Rahman Omar⁵, Saulol Hamid Nur-Fazila⁴, Prem Anand¹, Liew Wuan Hoong¹, and Kiven Kumar⁴

1. Gasing Veterinary Hospital, 53 and 55, Jalan 5/58, Gasing Indah, 46000 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.
2. Department of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosis, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
3. Laboratory of Vaccine and Biomolecules, Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
4. Department of Veterinary Pathology and Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
5. Laboratory of Vaccine and Biomolecules, Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. Department of Veterinary Pathology and Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.

Background and Aim: Feline leukemia virus (FeLV) is classified as Retroviridae gammaretrovirus. FeLV occurs worldwide, including Malaysia. Thus far, only one decade-old study on molecular characterization of Malaysian FeLV isolates exists, which resulted in a scarcity of updated information of current FeLV isolates circulating in Malaysia. This study was conducted to determine the status of FeLV in clinically ill cats and to study the molecular characterization and phylogenetic relatedness of the current isolates.

Materials and Methods: Convenience sampling was performed in 20 cats from the Gasing Veterinary Hospital in Selangor. Plasma and saliva samples were collected from 15 clinically ill cats and 5 healthy cats subjected to one-step reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction with primers targeting a highly conserved gene of U3-LTR-gag.

Results: Two clinically ill cats' plasma and saliva samples tested positive for FeLV RNA. Partial nucleotide sequencing and phylogenetic analysis revealed that the current isolates were 94-99% homologous to the previous Malaysian and Japanese FeLV isolates.

Conclusion: Current FeLV isolates from this study displayed higher similarity with the previous Malaysian isolates, signifying that a similar FeLV strain circulated among the cat population in Selangor. Keywords: feline leukemia virus, Malaysia, one-step reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, phylogenetic analysis.

Keywords: feline leukemia virus, Malaysia, one-step reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, phylogenetic analysis.

How to cite this article: Mummoorthy K, Yasmin AR, Arshad SS, Omar AR, Nur-Fazila SH, Anand P, Hoong LW, Kumar K (2021) Molecular detection of feline leukemia virus in clinically ill cats in Klang Valley, Malaysia, Veterinary World, 14(2): 405-409.

Received: 25-08-2020 Accepted: 07-12-2020 Published online: 13-02-2021

Corresponding author: Abd Rahaman Yasmin E-mail: noryasmin@upm.edu.my

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2021.405-409

Copyright: Mummoorthy, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.