Molecular Characterization of Novel Fish Viruses from Technical Assistance Cases
Viruses occur in many cultured and wild stocks of fish. William Batts collaborates with many government, state, tribal, and private research and diagnostic laboratories to aid in identification of these unknown replicating agents of uncertain pathogenicity. Typically, viruses can be replicated in a variety of fish cell lines and investigated at several temperatures to see if the cytopathic effect is different from existing fish viruses. When they are unknown to the diagnosticians, the viruses are sent to the Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle for attempts at characterization.
Often unknown viruses are an existing strain of virus that was simply unfamiliar to the diagnostic lab, perhaps due to this virus never being isolated in the geographic region or in the fish species being investigated. However, the technical assistance service we provide has led to scientific publications on a wide variety of fish viruses including novel members of orthomyxoviruses, aquareoviruses, picornaviruses, nidoviruses, hepeviruses, paramyxoviruses, and rhabdoviruses.
We use amplification of the viral nucleic acids by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to obtain sufficient DNA for molecular sequencing. This authentic DNA sequence is used to search for existing viral sequences accessioned into DNA databases. If no virus match occurs, it is possible that the agent is quite unique, never observed before in any fish population.
Viruses occur in many cultured and wild stocks of fish. William Batts collaborates with many government, state, tribal, and private research and diagnostic laboratories to aid in identification of these unknown replicating agents of uncertain pathogenicity. Typically, viruses can be replicated in a variety of fish cell lines and investigated at several temperatures to see if the cytopathic effect is different from existing fish viruses. When they are unknown to the diagnosticians, the viruses are sent to the Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle for attempts at characterization.
Often unknown viruses are an existing strain of virus that was simply unfamiliar to the diagnostic lab, perhaps due to this virus never being isolated in the geographic region or in the fish species being investigated. However, the technical assistance service we provide has led to scientific publications on a wide variety of fish viruses including novel members of orthomyxoviruses, aquareoviruses, picornaviruses, nidoviruses, hepeviruses, paramyxoviruses, and rhabdoviruses.
We use amplification of the viral nucleic acids by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to obtain sufficient DNA for molecular sequencing. This authentic DNA sequence is used to search for existing viral sequences accessioned into DNA databases. If no virus match occurs, it is possible that the agent is quite unique, never observed before in any fish population.