Heterogeneity of 9 feline herpesvirus type 1 (FHV-1) strains consisting of the prototype C27 strain, one French isolate, six Japanese isolates, and the attenuated vaccine F2 strain was examined by biological, immunological, and molecular biological methods. No significant difference was observed in virus growth and antigenic properties among the strains in Crandell feline kidney cell cultures. Hemagglutination activity was also detected in all extracts of cells infected with each strain. However, in immunoblot analysis, a virus-structural immunogenic protein with an M(r) of 36 kDa was lacking in 2 strains, one of which was the vaccine F2 strain, whereas the other immunogenic proteins including three kinds of major glycoproteins were detected in all strains without differences in electrophoretic mobilities. Furthermore, when restriction endonuclease analysis was performed to examine the genomic heterogeneity of strains, the cleavage patterns with the enzyme MluI showed a genomic heterogeneity between wild and vaccine strains. In contrast, only a slight variation in the sizes of some fragments was shown with most of the 7 other enzymes used. These results indicated that the lack of the 36 kDa protein and the MluI cleavage pattern could be used as markers of the vaccine F2 strain. The specific markers are important not only to control the quality of the vaccine but also to evaluate the vaccine immunity in FHV-1 infection in cats.
