Phylogenetic Analysis of Rabies Virus Isolates from Dogs in Plateau State, Nigeria

The entire Nucleoprotein gene of 28 rabies virus isolates from Plateau state, Nigeria were subjected to genetic typing using RT-PCR and nucleotide sequencing respectively. A phylogenetic tree of the isolates was constructed to determine their ancestry and study their relationships with other strains of the rabies virus from previous studies in Nigeria, other regions of the world and the Flurry LEP vaccine strains widely used within the country for vaccine production. The RABVs found in this study differed from the LEP fixed strains indicating that the disease is caused by stray dog related RABVs. These viruses also clustered away from another Nigerian isolate reported in a previous study in which it belonged to Africa 1b lineage. All Nigerian isolates from this study belong to Africa 2 lineage as do other isolates from the West African region, suggesting a common ancestry for all these isolates which in turn implies they may have been part of the same long term evolving rabies enzootics.