Project: Molecular tracing of viral pathogens in aquaculture.
This project will i)generate and use spatio-temporal epidemiological data, phylogeographic data and gene expression data for important host-viral pathogen systems to identify important factors affecting the spread of diseases in aquaculture, and ii)integrate these in scenario simulation models to assess effects of various control strategies for selected host-pathogen systems. The purpose of the project is to increase knowledge on transmission, prevention and control of viral diseases in aquaculture and develop a generic approach to viral disease control by using information on epidemiological and physiogenetical attributes from several important aquatic animal viruses. The specific objectives are: 1)Collection of isolates of specific important aquatic animal viruses and their respective epidemiological data (from as wide host ranges, broad geographic distributions and variable pathogenicities as possible), 2)Characterisation of the isolates by phylogenetic and expression analyses and 3)Constructing scenario simulation models to assess effects of different control strategies. The project partners cover different fields of expertise and will contribute accordingly. NVI (NO) is the consortium coordinator of the project. NVI will be responsible for collecting surveillance data covering the incidence of viral infections in cultured populations in space and time and investigate the efficacy of disease intervention strategies. DTU-VET (DK) will primarily undertake research on VHSV and perch rhabdoviruses and include its large international strain collections for the project. DTU-Vet will expand the database www.fishpathogens.eu with the virus isolates included in the studies and create new sub databases for OsHV-1 and SAV isolates. ANSES (FR) has a large number of fish rhabdoviruses and various genotypes of nodaviruses, and will participate in the molecular characterization of yet uncharacterized or only partially characterized viruses. IFREMER (FR) has a collection of more than 100 samples infected with mollusc herpes-viruses, which will be used to investigate the genetic virus diversity. Bioinformatics will be applied to investigate the linkage between genomic features and virus properties. IRD (FR) has an extensive collection of KHV-isolates, which will be genotyped and included in the modelling methods. Furthermore, IRD will use own and other partner sequences to build DNA microarrays for expression studies. FLI (DE) will contribute with a large collection of IHNV, VHSV and KHV isolates. FLI will do comparative studies with regard to the origin, relationship and classification of the isolates. Additionally, FLI will work closely together with IRD in building microarrays. NR (NO) will incorporate data generated from the other partners into models that can exploit both traditional epidemiological data and genetic information on the disease agents, to simulate various disease spread intervention scenarios.
| Acronym | MOLTRAQ |
| Duration | 31/03/2015 |
| Website | visit project website |
| Network | EMIDA |
| Call | 2nd EMIDA Joint Call on Emerging and Major Infectious Diseases of Livestock |