Objective: In order to investigate the epidemics of borna disease virus (BDV) in Ningxia and its vicinal regions.
Methods: p24 fragment of BDV from: (1) peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and cerebrospinal fluid mononuclear cells (CSFMC) from 52 patients with viral encephalitis (VE) and 32 healthy donors, (2) peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 53 patients with depressive disorder (DD) and from 360 sheep, were examined by nested reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction(PCR) with fluorescence quantitative PCR. Gene sequence and amino acid sequence were analysed for positive product and the molecular epidemiologic characteristics by drawing phylogenetic trees.
Results: The positive rate of BDV p24 in CSFMC from VE (11.54%) and in PBMC from DD 11.32% was significantly higher than that in healthy donors (0%) (P < 0.05). The phylogenetic trees indicating the genetic relationship of the p24 fragment of BDV in both sheep and VE, DD in China and was similar to the nucleotide sequence of H1766 strain in Germany.
Conclusion: Data indicated that the BDV infection was possibly existing in VE, DD patients and health sheep in Ningxia and its vicinal regions with confined locality which called for further study.