HoBi-like Pestivirus is accused in similar clinical manifestations to those of bovine viral diarrhea virus infections. Although, HoBi-like Pestivirus infection has been recorded in multiple countries as in South America, Europe, and Asia, no clinical cases were recorded in Egypt even now. Here, for the first time, we reported natural infection of HoBi-like Pestivirus in Egyptian cattle. Serum and ovarian samples were collected from cattle during the year of 2019. RT-PCR, viral isolation, sequencing, and phylogeny revealed that the primary causative agent was HoBi-like Pestivirus. Our HoBi-like Pestivirus strain, Egypt-020-1ncp, BVDV-Egypt-020-3ncp and BVDV-Egypt-020-2ncp, shared 99.6% homology with BVD3- B1-AU, 99.2% with BVD3- B5-3-MX and BVD3-G2-BR, 98% with BVD3- Hobi-like virus SA-2016-04 and 95% with BVD3- Italy-68-13ncp isolated in Australia, Mexico, Brazil, South America, and Italy. Multiple area of mutations a long 5′ UTR amplicon, were observed by alignment of BVDV- Egypt-020-1ncp BVDV-Egypt-020-3ncp and BVDV-Egypt-020-2ncp.While Npro based detection was not succeeded to detect our HoBi-like Pestivirus in original samples or even in viral isolate despite their ability to amplify the BVDV RNA of reference strain (NDAL). Precisely, this study provides the first evidence of HoBi-like pestivirus infection in Egypt, raising prospective threat to Egyptian cattle industry.
Keywords | HoBi-like Pestivirus, Cattle, Phylogenetic analysis, 5`UTR