A Microarray Based Approach for the Identification of Common Foodborne Viruses

Ayodeji, Mobolanle; Kulka, Michael; Jackson, Scott A; Patel, Isha; Mammel, Mark; Cebula, Thomas A; Goswami, Biswendu B

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) coupled to reverse transcription (RT) represents the most significant improvement in the area of RNA virus detection over classical cell culture based methods. In the classical culture based method, the principal mode of virus identification uses growth of the virus in permissive cells and observation of the morphological changes brought about by virus replication in the host cell [1] . Although it is possible to differentiate between cytopathic and non-cytopathic hepatitis A virus (HAV) strains due to a difference in the morphology of infected cells [2] , in practice such morphological identification is of limited value because the morphological effects are cell-line specific, and many viruses in the same genus (e.g. Enterovirus) produce rapid and similar cytopathic changes in many of the celllines normally used for virus detection. Moreover, using multiple cell-lines for virus detection is also labor intensive and time consuming, and further confirmation and identification often requires the use of additional techniques such as serotyping [1] .