Biochemical Studies on the Molecular Level of Polioviruses

Paralytic poliomyelitis continues to be an important disease affecting many children.The strategy for poliomyelitis eradication includes routine immunization, surveillanceof acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) and mopping-up activities. Environmentalmonitoring, mainly involving the screening of waste water can provide evidence ofthe circulation or absence of wild-type polioviruses. The present work has beencarried out to investigate the sequence divergence of neurovirulent derivatives of theSabin oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) strains, to establish epidemiological linkbetween isolates, and to determine poliovirus genotype which circulates in Egypt.Enzyme Linked Immunoassay (ELIZA) and Reverse Transcription Polymerase ChainReaction (RT-PCR) for intratypic differentiation have been used. Molecular analysisof the VPI/2A junction region has been performed on 22 isolates using the dideoxychain termination method. Sequencing of the amplified region has been performedusing the automated genetic analyzer ABI prism 310. Forward and reverseelectropherograms were compared using sequencing alignment software version 2.Phylogenetic analysis of the VPI/2A region was done using Clustal X software.