title: Molecular epidemiology of animal virus diseases.
abstract: In this review the application of methods of molecular epidemiology, particularly the combined approach of amplifying defined fragments of viral genomes using the polymerase chain reaction and subsequent nucleotide sequencing analysis, is described. Emphasis is put on examples of a few important diseases (e.g. those caused by morbilliviruses, rhabdoviruses, pestiviruses and aphthoviruses) to demonstrate the impact of this methodology. Molecular epidemiology is already an important and very sensitive tool to study the evolution of viruses at a level superior to previous methodologies and providing a better understanding of epidemiological relationships.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Virology, Hannover Veterinary School, Germany.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Haas
mesh_terms: D000820:Animal Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D000818:Animals; D005537:Aphthovirus / Q000235:genetics; D016679:Genome, Viral; D005838:Genotype; D018103:Morbillivirus / Q000235:genetics; D009975:Orthomyxoviridae / Q000235:genetics; D010576:Pestivirus; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods / Q000662:veterinary; D011820:Rabies virus / Q000235:genetics; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics / Q000662:veterinary*