Award details

Molecular Epidemiology of Morbillivirus Infections

Reference	BBS/E/I/00001011
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Thomas Barrett
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	The Pirbright Institute
Department	The Pirbright Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	674,090
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2003
End date	31/03/2008
Duration	60 months

Abstract

It is essential to continue to improve and develop rapid and sensitive tests for the differential diagnosis of morbilliviruses and not depend upon virus isolation, neutralisation or serological tests, which are time-consuming. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been used very effectively for rapid diagnosis of these viruses. Both universal and specific morbillivirus primer sets have been developed to identify different morbillivirus infections in animals based on sequence data derived from the nucleocapsid, phospho and fusion protein genes. These diagnostic tests have proved to be extremely useful but, as they involve conventional PCR methodology, they are not as fast and convenient to use as newer methods such as Real-Time PCR. Real-Time PCR, by avoiding the use of agarose gels, greatly eases the task of analyzing the multiple samples that result as a consequence of an explosive epizootic, for example as occurred with PDV in the seal population around Britain and Northern Europe in the summer of 2002. In addition to use in epidemiological studies, Real-Time PCR can be applied to pathogenetic studies to analyse the distribution and virus load in different tissues from infected animals. This project is designed to make use of the large amount of sequence data that we have accumulated on the different morbilliviruses over the past decade to design suitable primers and probes for Real-Time PCR. These tests can be further refined to develop multiplex systems to identify and differentiate several viruses in one reaction. Primer sets to identify any of the viruses that are likely to infect a particular host can be included in one reaction. For example for ruminants a test to detect and distinguish RPV and PPRV would be most suitable, while for marine mammals a test to detect and differentiate PDV, CDV and CeMV would be a great advance in our diagnostic capability.

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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