Sharif et al. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 2010, 52:1 http://www.actavetscand.com/content/52/1/1 Page 4 of 7 Figure 2 Comparison of partial sequence of 3’UTR of Malaysian isolates and reference strains of feline coronaviruses. Multiple alignments were performed using ClustalW Multiple alignment (Bioedit version 7.0.9). The sequences of the primers were removed from the alignment. Dots indicate identity. previously reported [14,17,18]. As the pathogenesis of the disease is still not fully understood, the relation of gender and incidence of FIP is not clear. About 56% of FCoV-positive cases were DSH, 40% Persian, and 4% Siamese cats. In the present study, the majority of cats (96%) diagnosed with FIP were DSH or Persian. This finding is in accordance with a previous report on FIP in Malaysia showing that 69.7% and 27.3% of cats diagnosed with FIP were DSH and Persian cats, respectively [11]. However, these studies did not con- clude that these two breeds were more susceptible to FIP because of limited variation in cat breeds presented at UVH-UPM and lack of clinical cases of FIP in differ- ent breeds in Malaysia. Furthermore, in a study on the prevalence of FIP in specific cat breeds, DSH and Per- sian cats were at low risk compared to others [18]. Age, breed and gender distribution in FCoV-positive cats are shown in Figure 1 and statistical analysis is summarized in Table 1. Out of 25 PCR positive cases, 10 isolates were selected for further sequence analyses. All 10 field isolates desig- nated as UPM1C/07 to UPM10C/09 with accession no. FJ897745 to FJ897754, respectively were deposited in the GeneBank (Table 2). These sequences were aligned with published sequences of FCoV using ClustalW Mul- tiple alignment (Bioedit version 7.0.9). The sequences of four Malaysian FCoV isolates which have been isolated from healthy cats in a previous study [19] were also included in the alignment (Table 2). Homology matrix and phylogenetic trees were constructed using Neigh- bor-Joining method (Bioedit) and TreeTop-Phylogenetic Tree Prediction (GeneBee-Molecular Biology Server