Canine distemper virus (CDV), a Morbillivirus of the family Paramyxoviridae, is the etiological agent of neurological and systemic disease in dogs. The laboratory diagnosis of infection requires viral isolation or detection of genetic material of the virus in secretions or tissues of dogs with clinical suspicion of the disease. The genetic diversity among isolates of CDV can be assessed by sequencing and phylogenetic analysis of the gene that encodes the viral hemagglutinin (H gene), and there is currently a special interest in comparing the strains currently circulating in the field with the genogroup America-1, which comprises strains present in vaccines available in the market. In this study, the molecular detection of CDV gene H was performed from biological samples harvested ante-and post-mortem from 15 dogs with clinical signs suggestive of canine distemper in the metropolitan region of Campinas, São Paulo. Ten of the 15 dogs examined had at least one positive organ under molecular detection and the obtained amplicons were sequenced and further analyzed by molecular phylogenetic analysis. Similarly to what has already been reported on previous studies regarding the diversity of the gene H in other countries, the phylogenetic reconstruction obtained for the samples of cases of distemper from Campinas region showed they were grouped with the North American, European and Japanese newly described samples, a genetic group distinguished from classical samples of CDV, named America-1, which encompasses the vaccine strains Snyder Hill, Onderstepoort and Lederle.
Canine distemper virus; hemagglutinin gene; molecular phylogenetic analysis
