Project Title: “Identification and Follow-up of Emergent and Reemergent Pathogens”
- Director: Dr. Julio Cartagena
General Objective (Technical Description):Designing and implementing a low cost platform for thesimultaneous detection and quantification of bacterial and viral pathogens using PCR in real time.
Description:ICTIO Biotechnologies has developed a kit that can simultaneously detect and estimate the quantity of the main pathogens affecting Chilean salmoniculture. The kit includes the necessary reagents for the extraction of genetic material (nucleic acids like DNA and RNA) from target tissue like spleen, kidney and/or heart; it also includes the primers and reference DNA (positive control) required for the molecular analysis using real time PCR (qPCR, Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction) that amplifies and quantifies the genetic material of the screened pathogens. The kit is designed so that the primers and the optimized amplification conditions allow for a single analysis (one run) real-time PCR detection of all marine pathogens. The pathogens detected and quantified by the kit are viruses ISAV,IPNV yPRV, and the bacteria Piscirickettsia salmonis,Flavobacterium psychrophilum, Renibacterium salmoninarum,Vibrio ordaliiandYersinia ruckeri.
Status: Currently the kit has been prototyped. Prototypes have been tried by various external laboratories. At the moment the kit is in the last validation feasibility phase, following the requirements of the Nº3 SernapescaTechnical Regulation. We expect this process to conclude by August 2018.
Project Benefits: In salmoniculture, a quick and accurate diagnosis of the pathogens infecting and causing disease in cultured fish is essential. Our pathogen detection and quantification kit will allow the user to obtain faster results through a single run real-time PCR analysis detecting various pathogens at the same time.
