Award details

Application of RT-PCR for the diagnosis of FMD and other vesicular diseases

Reference	BBS/E/I/00000994
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr Nigel Ferris
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	The Pirbright Institute
Department	The Pirbright Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	4,113
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/07/2002
End date	30/06/2005
Duration	36 months

Abstract

In the event of an outbreak of vesicular disease rapid confirmation by laboratory investigation is required. Research is aimed at improving the sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic tests for detection of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and related vesicular viruses, as well as the throughput and the speed of issue of final definitive results. Current procedures for vesicular virus investigation rely upon the use of ELISA for antigen detection coupled with virus isolation in cell culture. The former procedure is specific but not sufficiently sensitive to detect 100% of positive samples thus necessitating the passage of the sample in cell cultures for isolation and amplification of virus, which can take up to four days. The full four days are needed to confirm a negative result (two passages in cell culture each of 2 days duration) which means that decisions on disease control may have to be taken before laboratory test results are available. In serious epidemics there is also the need to be able to process large numbers of samples. More rapid and sensitive diagnostic procedures are therefore required to improve disease control and the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) offers the potential to achieve this objective. Universal and serotype specific primers will be investigated in a variety of formats to increase the reliability, scale-up potential and sensitivity of RT-PCR for the primary diagnosis of FMD and other vesicular viruses.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Animal Sciences (AS)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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