Abstract: Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) and goat pox virus (GTPV) are the causative agents of two kinds of goats’ diseases—peste des petits ruminants and goat pox which can cause disaster economic losses. In order to detect the two viruses simultaneously and quickly, two sets of primers and relative probes were designed based on the nucleoprotein (N) gene of PPRV and the inverted terminal repeat (ITR) segment of GTPV， respectively. In order to work together in the same reaction, the probes were labeled with different fluorescent materials 5′FAM-TAMRA3′and 5′JOE-Eclipse3′，respectively. Results showed that the duplex Real-time RT-PCR assay was identified to be specific for PPRV and GTPV only and specific fluorescent signal could be detected, but the related viruses including fowl pox virus（FPV）and canine distemper virus (CDV) had no specific fluorescent signal. Positive recombinant plasmids (PPRV pMD18-T-N and GTPV pMD18-T-ITR) were built and used for positive quantitative templates to establish duplex standard curves. The developed assay based on the probe N-ITR was found to be highly specific and sensitive with a detection limit of 10² copies/μL cDNA and 10³ copies/μL DNA for PPRV and GTPV， respectively. Finally, the duplex Real-time RT-PCR assay for simultaneous detection of PPRV and GTPV was established preliminarily in the study.

Key words: peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV); goat pox virus (GTPV); duplex Real-time RT-PCR; probe