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Development of one-step SYBR Green real-time RT-PCR for quantifying bovine viral diarrhea virus type-1 and its
Ni Zhang1, Zhengwen Liu, Qunying Han
1Department of Infectious Diseases, First Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, Shaanxi Province, the People's Republic of China.
Background:
Bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) is a worldwide pathogen in cattle and acts as a surrogate model for hepatitis C virus (HCV). One-step real-time fluorogenic quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay based on SYBR Green I dye has not been established for BVDV detection. This study aims to develop a quantitative one-step RT-PCR assay to detect BVDV type-1 in cell culture.
Results:
One-step quantitative SYBR Green I RT-PCR was developed by amplifying cDNA template from viral RNA and using in vitro transcribed BVDV RNA to establish a standard curve. The assay had a detection limit as low as 100 copies/ml of BVDV RNA, a reaction efficiency of 103.2%, a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.995, and a maximum intra-assay CV of 2.63%. It was 10-fold more sensitive than conventional RT-PCR and can quantitatively detect BVDV RNA levels from 10-fold serial dilutions of titrated viruses containing a titer from 10(-1) to 10(-5) TCID50, without non-specific amplification. Melting curve analysis showed no primer-dimers and non-specific products.
Conclusions:
The one-step SYBR Green I RT-PCR is specific, sensitive and reproducible for the quantification of BVDV in cell culture. This one-step SYBR Green I RT-PCR strategy may be further optimized as a reliable assay for diagnosing and monitoring BVDV infection in animals. It may also be applied to evaluate candidate agents against HCV using BVDV cell culture model.

