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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Athens, Georgia » U.S. National Poultry Research Center » Exotic & Emerging Avian Viral Diseases Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #343137
Research Project: Intervention Strategies to Prevent and Control Disease Outbreaks Caused by Emerging Strains of Avian Influenza Viruses

Location: Exotic & Emerging Avian Viral Diseases Research

Title: The role of next generation sequencing for the development and testing of veterinary biologics

Author
item Suarez, David
item Afonso, Claudio
item Kapczynski, Darrell
item DIMITROV, KIRIL - Consultant

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/10/2017
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Next generation sequencing technology has become widely available and it offers many new opportunities in vaccine technology. Both human and veterinary medicine has numerous examples of adventitious agents being found in live vaccines. In veterinary medicine a continuing trend is the use of viral vectored vaccines to express many different antigens, and this trend is likely to accelerate because of their unique advantages in administration and enhanced protection. The use of live vaccines, produced in cell culture or embryonating chicken eggs, offers opportunities for adventitious agents to be introduced. Next generation sequencing also known as deep sequencing can be used in a sequence independent manner so that it can identify any nucleic acid based pathogens in a sample. This approach has already identified a porcine circovirus in a human rotavirus vaccine. This approach is now being applied to veterinary vaccines and can be used in a sequence dependent or independent manner. The sequence independent approach can potentially identity any agent in a sample, but sensitivity still remains the critical issue. Other technologies like PCR are still more sensitive, but newer approaches provide promises of increased sensitivity. The second application is to look for variants of the vaccine virus, because reversion to virulence is still an issue for veterinary vaccines. For viruses like avian influenza, small changes in the hemagglutinin cleavage site can result in a major shift in virulence. NGS provides an unique tool to examine critical virulence sites to assure a vaccine is highly homogeneous and provides evidence of stability. NGS technology will likely become a routinely used regulatory tool for veterinary and human vaccines.