Award details

New phylogenetic and detection methodologies for morbillivirus diseases and evaluation of new marker vaccines

Reference	BBS/E/I/00001376
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Thomas Barrett
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	The Pirbright Institute
Department	The Pirbright Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	167,735
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2008
End date	30/06/2009
Duration	15 months

Abstract

The main objective of the project is to investigate different regions of the morbillivirus genomes to establish which are the most suitable for phylogenetic analysis and virus strain differentiation. At present I use sequences from the F and P genes for this analysis but others, such as the H and N genes may also offer useful insights into virus evolution in the field. I therefore wish to expand our sequence database for these genes for PPRV and other morbilliviruses which cause diseases in wildlife; viruses such as CDV, PDV, DMV and PMV. Recently there has been an upsurge of PPRV in Africa and Asia and outbreaks of diseases in marine mammal species where morbillivirus are the aetiological agents. At present there is a serious outbreak of DMV in whales and dolphins in the Mediterranean Sea and our laboratory has confirmed the diagnosis based on pathoological findings using conventional and Real Time PCR (qPCR) assays. This, along with sequence analysis, was of great help in understanding the epizootic. As part of a wider consortium of laboratories working on these diseases I will be involved in evaluating and validating new and existing qPCRs for virus detection. We will try to improve the specificity and sensitivity of these assays and, if they are not adequate, new assays will be designed. One-step qPCR assays will be favoured as they greatly speed up the task and are less prone to cross contamination. I also plan to develop a "universal" real time assay capable of detecting all of the known morbilliviruses. In any event, it is likely that more than one assay will be required for diagnostic laboratories since the genomes of RNA viruses are highly mutable and it would be dangerous to rely on only one assay for this task. I will also test marker PPRV vaccines currently under development in my laboratory and validate new ELISA-formats to detect and differentiate infected from vaccinated animals (DIVA).

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Animal Sciences (AS)
Research Topics	Animal Health, Microbiology
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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