Differentiation of wild-type varicella-zoster strains from India and the Oka vaccine strain using a VZV open reading frame - 62 based PCR-RFLP technique

Since the introduction of varicella vaccination in India, surveillance of circulating VZV strains has gained significance. Differentiating wild-type VZV strains from the Oka vaccine strain can be achieved only by molecular genotyping methods. The development of PCR methods for VZV strain differentiation has been hampered by the fact that the VZV genome is highly conserved. We used VZV ORF 62 PCR-RFLP analysis to identify and differentiate wild-type VZV strains in India from the Oka vaccine strain. Digestion of VZV ORF 62 amplicons with SmaI, enabled accurate strain differentiation; the Oka strain was positive for three SmaI sites, compared to two SmaI sites in the wild-type VZV strains that we tested.