The complete genetic codes of
150 different avian influenza viruses have been identified by a scientific team
led by the Agricultural Research Service. Click the image for more
information about it.
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Avian Influenza Genome Sequences Released
By
Sharon Durham May 30 , 2008
WASHINGTON, May 30, 2008--The complete genetic coding sequences of 150
different avian influenza viruses were released today by
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
scientists and government, industry and university collaborators. The
information improves scientific understanding of avian influenza, a virus that
mainly infects birds but that can also infect humans.
"This is a major milestone in avian influenza research," said
David
Suarez, research leader of the Exotic and Emerging Avian Viral Diseases
Research Unit at the
Southeast
Poultry Research Laboratory (SEPRL) operated at Athens, Ga., by the
Agricultural Research Service (ARS). ARS
is the chief intramural scientific research agency of USDA. Suarez oversees the
ARS avian influenza virus repository at SEPRL.
"This sequence information, deciphered by our large team, will help
researchers better understand virus biology and improve diagnostic tests for
avian influenza viruses," Suarez added.
Today's release to GenBank, the National
Institutes of Health's genetic sequence database, was part of a special
sequencing project supported by the presidential initiative on avian influenza.
Partners involved in collecting the viruses included USDA's
Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service's Wildlife Services, as well as researchers at the
University of Georgia (UGA),
Ohio State University (OSU) and the
University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and others.
After the virus isolates were prepared at SEPRL, the virus'
noninfectious genetic material, called ribonucleic acid or RNA, was sent to
industry collaborator SeqWright
Corporation in Houston, Texas, which used its expertise to fully sequence
the genome of each virus. The sequence information was reviewed and annotated
at SEPRL for release to GenBank.
"The project's ultimate goal is to sequence 900 avian influenza
viruses from the SEPRL repository," said Suarez. "These include avian influenza
viruses collected from both poultry and wild bird species in the United States
and around the world."
The sequence information will be combined with studies comparing the
viruses' ability to infect and cause disease in several poultry species
including chickens, turkeys and domestic ducks. The analysis of the sequence
and biological data will provide new insights into how these viruses cause
disease in man and animals. The biological characterization was performed with
collaborations with UGA, OSU and University of
Delaware collaborators.