NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Swiss-based pathogen sequencing analysis firm BioInnovation Solutions today said that it and the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have developed a panel for the rapid detection and surveillance of filoviruses, such as Ebola and Marburg.
The work was carried out under a cooperative research and development agreement. BioInnovation said that USAMRIID has successfully used the technology and efforts are ongoing to develop sequence-based detection methods of discovering new host biomarkers and biothreats at preclinical levels.
The panel and the research developing it are described in a PLOS One paper. The researchers designed probes to capture identifying filovirus sequence for four strains of the Ebola virus and three variants of the Marburg virus. The probes were combined into a single probe panel and the captured filovirus sequence was successfully identified using the Illumina MiSeq instrument
The panel was then used to identify the specific filovirus from non-human primates who were infected with Ebola and the Bundibugyo virus, demonstrating the utility of the panel.
The researchers noted that while the panel is not as sensitive or rapid as real-time PCR, "this panel, along with incorporating additional sequence capture probe panels, could be used for broad pathogen screening and biosurveillance."
BioInnovation is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland and combines informatics analysis and next-generation sequencing for pathogen detection and real-time biosurveillance.