Project description:RNA viruses adapt rapidly to new host environments by generating highly diverse genome sets, so-called “quasispecies”. Minor genetic variants promote their rapid adaptation allowing for emergence of drug-resistance or immune-escape mutants. Understanding these adaptation processes is highly relevant to assess the risk of cross-species transmission, and safety and efficacy of vaccines and antivirals. We hypothesized that genetic memory within a viral genome population facilitates rapid adaptation.
Project description:Viromes of sour and sweet cherry trees in Hungarian germ line collections were surveyed using small RNA HTS as an unbiased method. RNA from leaf samples of different cultivars were purified and used to produce seven pools from which small RNA HTS libraries were prepared. The sequenced reads were analyzed using bioinformatic methods to revel the presence of viruses in the samples. Presence of the viruses were validated using RT-PCR.
Project description:This project aims to investigate the effects of 3% oxygen environments on THP-1 cells as compared to 20% oxygen environments. THP-1 cells (pre-seed) were divided into 2 different conditions and cultured in 20% and 3% oxygen environments for 24h. Samples were performed in triplicates.
Project description:The capability of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Enteric Viruses tiling microarray (FDA-EVIR) was assessed for rapid molecular identification of human norovirus (NoV) and hepatitis A virus (HAV) extracted from artificially inoculated fresh produce. Two published viral extraction strategies, total RNA extraction or virus particle isolation, were employed to prepare the viral targets. We also assessed the amount of viral RNA extracted from celery by three commercially-available kits and how well that RNA performed on the FDA-EVIR. Our results confirm that FDA-EVIR can correctly identify common enteric viruses isolated from fresh produce and is capable of identifying single and mixed species of viruses, as well as distinguishing among genotypes. Extending microarray methods to other food matrices should provide important support to surveillance and outbreak investigations.
Project description:Meristem culture and somatic embryogenesis is an effective tool for virus elimination of vegetatively propagated crops including grapevine. While they both are proved to be useful to eliminate the main grapevine viruses their efficiency differs according to the virus and the variety. In our work we investigated their efficiency using small RNA high-throughput sequencing as virus diagnostic method. Field grown mother plants of four clones representing three cultivars, infected with different viruses and viroids were selected for sanitation via somatic embryogenesis and meristem culture. Our results show that the sanitation with SE was efficient against all of the presenting viruses, including grapevine Pinot gris virus, grapevine rupestris vein feathering virus and grapevine Syrah virus 1, having no data using somatic embryogenesis for their elimination. In case of other viruses and viroids such as GFkV, GRSPaV, GYSVd-1, HSVd this study confirms the findings of earlier researches, that SE is a possible way for elimination. While the efficiency of the elimination of different viruses was high, in case of viroids this ratio was lower. Our work demonstrated that efficiency of SE is comparable to the technically difficult meristem culture technique, and show promising way for the high demand of the production of virus-free grapevine in the future.