title: Evaluation of rt-PCR assay for routine laboratory diagnosis of rabies in post mortem brain samples from different species of animals.
abstract: Rabies in domestic and wild animals continues to be a major public health threat in India. Rapid and accurate diagnosis of rabies in animals is therefore of utmost importance as the individuals who were in contact with the rabid animals are at a greater risk. A significant amount of diagnostic tissue samples submitted to our laboratory are often autolysed and the WHO recommended direct fluorescent antibody test (FAT) for rabies diagnosis cannot be used in such samples. In this pilot study we have evaluated three different diagnostic primer sets for rapid sensitive and specific detection of rabies genome from the brain samples of different species of animals. We have validated a sensitive RT-PCR assay using brain tissue samples from different species of animals such as cat, cattle, dog, mouse and human, for routine diagnosis of rabies. Our results show the potential of this assay as a confirmatory test when the FAT results are unreliable and also as an alternative diagnostic test in circumstances when the diagnostic samples are unsuitable for use in FAT. Furthermore the nucleotide sequence of nucleoprotein gene amplified using this assay can also be used for the molecular epidemiological study of the rabies viruses in India.
authors.affiliation: Rabies Unit, Department of Animal Biotechnology, Madras Veterinary College, Chennai, 600007 India ; Pirbright Laboratory, Institute for Animal Health, Ash Road, Pirbright, GU240NF UK.
authors.forename: R P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Aravindh Babu
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Manoharan
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ramadass
authors.forename: N D J
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Chandran
keywords: Diagnosis; FAT; India; RT-PCR; Rabies