Shukla, J., Saxena, D., Rathinam, S., Lalitha, P., Joseph, C.R., Sharma, S., Soni, M., Rao, P.V. and Parida, M.
Notes: This study describes the clinical observations and laboratory investigations performed on 170 of the 2,000 suspected West Niles Virus (WNV) cases. These cases were admitted to Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, Tamil Nadu with ocular complications. Conventional reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) and real-time RT-PCR assays were used to detect WNV infection. In addition, reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal gene amplification (RT-LAMP) was performed to determine the feasibility of using this method as an alternative cost-effective tool to the real-time RT-PCR.
After proving negative for DENV- and CHIKV, samples were tested for the presence of WNV-specific RNA by RT-PCR, real-time RT-PCR and RT-LAMP assays. RNA was extracted from the patient serum, plasma and infected culture supernatant. The RNA was then eluted in 50µl of nuclease-free water and used as template in the AccessQuick™ RT-PCR System, with primer pairs targeting the env gene.
Amplification was performed in a 50µl total reaction volume with the AccessQuick™ RT-PCR System, using 50pmol of each forward and reverse primer and 2µl of extracted viral RNA. (4331)