Bovine herpesvirus-1: comparison and differentiation of vaccine and field strains based on genomic sequence variation

Bovine herpesvirus-1 (BoHV-1) causes significant disease in cattle including respiratory, fetal diseases, and reproductive tract infections. Control programs usually include vaccination with a modified live viral (MLV) vaccine. On occasion BoHV-1 strains are isolated from diseased animals or fetuses postvaccination. Currently there are no markers for differentiating MLV strains from field strains of BoHV-1. In this study several BoHV-1 strains were sequenced using whole-genome sequencing technologies and the data analyzed to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Strains sequenced included the reference BoHV-1 Cooper strain (GenBank Accession JX898220), eight commercial MLV vaccine strains, and 14 field strains from cases presented for diagnosis. Based on SNP analyses, the viruses could be classified into groups having similar SNP patterns. The eight MLV strains could be differentiated from one another although some were closely related to each other. A number of field strains isolated from animals with a history of prior vaccination had SNP patterns similar to specific MLV viruses, while other field isolates were very distinct from all vaccine strains. The results indicate that some BoHV-1 isolates from clinically ill cattle/fetuses can be associated with a prior MLV vaccination history, but more information is needed on the rate of BoHV-1 genome sequence change before irrefutable associations can be drawn.