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Pirbright delegation to present at largest ever entomology conference

A large delegation from The Pirbright Institute will be flying the flag for great British science this week, at the biggest ever entomology conference. The Institute’s scientists, many of whom are world-leading experts in their respective fields, have been asked to present…

Simple field tests developed for Indian strains of bluetongue virus

Researchers at The Pirbright Institute have developed field tests for Indian strains of bluetongue virus (BTV) that are reliable, rapid and simple to use. Bluetongue is a viral disease transmitted by biting midges ( Culicoides) that infects cattle, goats, sheep and wild…

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Transduction of skin-migrating dendritic cells by human adenovirus 5 occurs via an actin-dependent phagocytic pathway

Dendritic cells (DC) are central to the initiation of immune responses and various approaches have been used to target vaccines to DC in order to improve immunogenicity. Cannulation of lymphatic vessels allows for the collection of DC that migrate from the skin. These…

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DNA barcoding and surveillance sampling strategies for Culicoides biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) in southern India

BACKGROUND: Culicoides spp. biting midges transmit bluetongue virus (BTV), the aetiological agent of bluetongue (BT), an economically important disease of ruminants. In southern India, hyperendemic outbreaks of BT exert high cost to subsistence farmers in the region…

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Influenza A virus PB1-F2 protein prolongs viral shedding in chickens lengthening the transmission window

Avian influenza is a significant economic burden on the poultry industry in geographic regions where it is enzootic. It also poses a public health concern when avian influenza subtypes infect humans, often with high mortality. Understanding viral genetic factors which…

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The sex locus is tightly linked to factors conferring sex-specific lethal effects in the mosquito Aedes aegypti

In many taxa, sex chromosomes are heteromorphic and largely non-recombining. Evolutionary models predict that spread of recombination suppression on the Y chromosome is fueled by the accumulation of sexually antagonistic alleles in close linkage to the sex determination…

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Rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus capsid, a versatile platform for foreign B-cell epitope display inducing protective humoral immune responses

Virus-like particles (VLPs), comprised of viral structural proteins devoid of genetic material, are tunable nanoparticles that can be chemically or genetically engineered, to be used as platforms for multimeric display of foreign antigens. Here, we report the engineering of…

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Deletion of African swine fever virus interferon inhibitors from the genome of a virulent isolate reduces virulence in domestic pigs and induces a protective response

African swine fever virus (ASFV) encodes multiple copies of MGF360 and MGF530/505 gene families. These genes have been implicated in the modulation of the type I interferon (IFN) response. We investigated the effect of modulating the IFN response on virus attenuation and…

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A versatile panel of reference gene assays for the measurement of chicken mRNA by quantitative PCR

Quantitative real-time PCR assays are widely used for the quantification of mRNA within avian experimental samples. Multiple stably-expressed reference genes, selected for the lowest variation in representative samples, can be used to control random technical variation…

New method of diagnosing foot-and-mouth disease will use fewer small animals

Scientists at The Pirbright Institute, led by Gareth Shimmon, have found a new way of diagnosing foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) which is more cost effective and relies less on the use of small animals. FMD is a highly contagious viral disease that infects cloven-hoofed (two…