Marek’s disease (MD) is an infectious malignant-cell lymphoma proliferative disease caused by Marek’s disease virus (MDV). As MD has a significant impact on the poultry industry, numerous molecular diagnostic techniques have been developed for the detection of MDV. Recently, polymerase spiral reaction (PSR) has been emerging as a molecular technique to diagnose infection with high sensitivity and specificity. In this study, a PSR diagnostic was standardized for the detection of MDV infection. For PSR standardization purposes, the highly conserved glycoprotein E (gE) gene of MDV-1 was cloned into pJET1.2 plasmid and the recombinant plasmid was used as a template for standardization of PSR. Evaluation of the sensitivity of PSR indicated that it can detect up to one target molecule. The PSR and real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) have similar sensitivity batter than PCR-based sensitivity for detection of MDV-1. While evaluation of the specificity indicated PSR, RT-PCR, and PCR-based diagnostics have similar specificity for MDV-1 diagnosis.

Highlights

• PSR, and RT-PCR based diagnostic have similar sensitivity batter than PCR-based sensitivity for the detection of MDV-1.
• PSR, RT-PCR, and PCR based diagnostics have similar specificity for MDV-1 diagnosis.