We have developed a real-time nucleic acid sequence based amplification (NASBA) procedure for detection of infectious salmon anaemia virus (ISAV). Primers were designed to target a 124 nucleotide region of ISAV genome segment 8. Amplification products were detected in real-time with a molecular beacon (carboxyfluorescin [FAM]-labelled and methyl-red quenched) that recognised an internal region of the target amplicon. Amplification and detection were performed at 41°C for 90 min in a Corbett Research Rotorgene. The real-time NASBA assay was compared to a conventional RT-PCR for ISAV detection. From a panel of 45 clinical samples, both assays detected ISAV in the same 19 samples. Based on the detection of a synthetic RNA target, the real-time NASBA procedure was approximately 100× more sensitive than conventional RT-PCR. These results suggest that real-time NASBA may represent a useful diagnostic procedure for ISAV.KEY WORDS: Infectious salmon anaemia virus · Orthomyxovirus · NASBA · Diagnostics · Fish · Nucleic acid amplification
Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherDis Aquat Org 72: [107][108][109][110][111][112][113] 2006 Sensitive and specific diagnostic procedures are essential for the effective control of ISA. Methods currently used for the detection of ISAV include virus isolation in SHK-1, ASK, or CHSE-214 cells (Cipriano & Miller 2003), in situ hybridization (Gregory 2002), indirect fluorescent antibody testing (Falk & Dannevig 1995), and RT-PCR (Mjaaland et al. 1997, Rimstad et al. 1999, Devold et al. 2000. A real-time RT-PCR method for the diagnosis of ISAV utilising SyBr Green I detection of amplification products has been described by Munir & Kibenge (2004).Nucleic acid sequence based amplification (NASBA) is an isothermal nucleic acid amplification procedure based on the activity of 3 enzymes; reverse transcriptase, RNase H, and T7 RNA polymerase (Compton 1991). Real-time detection in NASBA can be performed using molecular beacon probes (Leone et al. 1998). NASBA detection methods have been described for several viruses including human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (de Baar et al. 1999 (Starkey et al. 2004) and SARS-associated coronavirus (Keightley et al. 2005).In the present study we report on the development of a real-time NASBA procedure for detection of ISAV. The real-time NASBA assay was compared to a conventional RT-PCR assay for ISAV using previously described primers (Mjaaland et al. 1997).
MATERIALS AND METHODSClinical samples. A panel of 45 clinical samples (Atlantic salmon kidney) obtained from outbreaks of ISA in Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Norway was used in this study (see Table 1). Samples 1 to 20 were archival, and following collection were stored at -70°C. Samples 21 to 45 were obtained from Atlantic salmon during an outbreak of ISA, and were stored in RNAlater (Ambion) at -20°C.RNA isolation. Isolation of RNA from tissue samples for use in both RT-PCR and NASBA was performed using the Nucleospin procedure (Machery Nagel)...