Examination of adenoviruses with molecular and pathological methods in sheep pneumonia cases

Objective. Reveal adenoviruses (AdV) that cause pneumonia in sheep and examine pathologic changes in the pulmonary and mediastinal lymph nodes of naturally infected adenovirus-positive specimens. Material and methods. For this purpose, 1459 lungs of sheep slaughtered in a slaughterhouse were macroscopically examined, and pneumonia lesions were detected in 88 (6.03%) of these. The paraffinized tissue sections of these specimens with pneumonia were examined with the immunohistochemical (IHC) and indirect immunofluorescence (IF) methods, whereas their tissue homogenates were examined using the Antigen ELISA and PCR methods for adenovirus positivity. Results. Accordingly, the prevalence of adenoviruses was determined as 19.3% for IHC, 22.7% for IF, 20.5% for ELISA and 13.6% for PCR. Hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining was performed to examine histopathological changes in the specimens that were naturally infected with adenoviruses. The histopathological examinations of the naturally infected lung specimens revealed mainly interstitial pneumonia, as well as catarrhal and verminous pneumonia findings. Consequently, it was determined that the most effective methods in the detection of adenoviruses in sheep pneumonias were found respectively as IF, ELISA, IHC and PCR. The finding that adenoviruses were observed only in the mediastinal lymph nodes of some specimens in the immunopathological methods suggested that the latency. Conclusions. The presence of adenoviruses in sheep pneumonia cases was determined with the indirect immunofluorescence, antigen ELISA and PCR methods for the first time. The possibility of the latent nature of adenovirus infection in these species was also discussed for the first time.