Detection of rabies virus in brain tissue by one-step reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction

Polymerase chain reaction is becoming popular in the field of disease diagnosis and in molecular characterization of the etiological agents. A simple method for the rapid detection of rabies virus was standardized employing one step reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) on 20 rabies suspected brain samples from different species (goat 10, sheep 3, cow 2, camel 2, fox 3). All 20 rabies suspected cases were found to be positive by RT-PCR using N and G gene specific primer sets. In case of N gene, the product size was 200 bp while in G gene it was 406 bp. Nineteen out of 20 brain samples were found to be positive on immunofluorescence and 12 for Negri bodies on histopathological examinations. The results of one step RT-PCR indicate its high sensitivity and usefulness for detecting rabies virus in rabies suspected brain samples.