Simultaneous detection of porcine pseudorabies virus, porcine parvovirus and porcine circovirus type 2 by multiplex real-time PCR and amplicon melting curve analysis using SYBR Green I

Porcine parvovirus, porcine pseudorabies virus and porcine circovirus type 2 can cause reproductive failure in pigs, and swine are often simultaneously infected by combinations of the three viruses. We here report the development of a SYBR Green I-based multiplex real time PCR assay for simultaneous detection of porcine parvovirus, porcine pseudorabies virus and porcine circovirus type 2. Three pairs of specific primers were designed for the porcine parvovirus-VP2, porcine pseudorabies virus-gH and porcine circovirus type 2-ORF2 genes. Viral genomes were identified based on their distinctive melting temperatures in single-plex PCR reactions. The melting temperature was 74.5 degrees C for the 313 bp amplicon of porcine parvovirus-VP2 gene, 87.5 degrees C for the 355 bp amplicon of porcine pseudorabies virus-gH gene and 80.5 degrees C for the 171 bp amplicon of the porcine circovirus type 2-ORF2 gene, respectively. The detection limit of the method ranged from 0.01-0.03 TCID50/ml for the three viruses. In addition, porcine parvovirus, porcine pseudorabies virus and porcine circovirus type 2 viral loads were measured in 100 field samples, and the result showed that the concordance between real-time PCR and conventional PCR was 60.42%. The sensitivity and specificity of real-time PCR were 100% and 100%, while those of conventional PCR were 40.83% and 72.22%, respectively.