Mehdi Ajorloo
1,2, Habibollah Mirzaei
1,3, Yasaman Sadeghi
4, Nastaran Tarban
5, Saber Soltani
4, Fatemeh Sadat Mohammadi
6, Pardis Davarinejad
7, Maedeh Amiri Roudy
8, Hamid Reza Jahantigh
6, Kosar Abouhamzeh
9, Mina Mohammadhosayni
10, Hadi Razavi Nikoo
11,12, Ashkan Alamdary
13, Mehdi Norouzi
8,14*1 Hepatitis Research Center, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Iran
2 School of Allied Medical Sciences, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Iran
3 Department of Virology, School of Medicine, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran
4 Department of Pathobiology School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
5 Department of Biology, Kish international campus, university of Tehran, Kish, Iran
6 Immunology Research Center, Inflammation and Inflammatory Diseases Division, Medical School, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
7 Department Biology, Faculty of Biology Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran North Branch, Tehran, Iran
8 Department of Virology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
9 Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, Faculty of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
10 Department of Immunology, Shahed University, School of Medicine, Tehran, Iran
11 Laboratory Science Research Center, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran
12 Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran
13 Department of Biology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
14 Research Center for Clinical Virology, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Background: This study aimed to evaluate Rabies virus vaccine strains. The obtained results may be helpful for vaccine producers and researchers to compare the strains with wild type and other vaccine strains and select the correct strain to challenge their products.
Methods: Fourteen rabies virus vaccine strains were compared with each other. The full genomes of the selected strains were taken from the GenBank and the N, P and G genes were labeled. The major and minor antigenic sites of these sequences were identified and contrasted with each other. The identity matrix was designed for rabies virus full genome, N and G genes. In addition, the phylogenetic tree was drawn based on rabies virus N gene for deep analysis.
Results: Although there were no significant differences between antigenic sites in N, P, and G genes, there were noticeable differences for full genome identity matrix and this significant difference can also be observed in N and G identity matrix. In the phylogenetic tree, the Iranian sequences were distant from currently applied vaccine strains.
Conclusion: It is necessary to pay attention to the results shown in phylogenetic tree because they warn us about distance between the Iranian sequences and current strains used in applied vaccines. In addition, the obtained results help vaccine producers to choose a correct strain to challenge their product and evaluate their vaccine potency.