eGene Completes Study of Detection of H5N1 Avian Flu Strain with Primers from Genome Institute of Singapore
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eGene, Inc. has announced that it had recently, using H5N1 avian influenza primers provided by the Genome Institute of Singapore completed an application study that demonstrated that eGene's HDA-GT12 Genetic Analyzer can detect H5N1 avian influenza to as few as 10 viral RNA copies.
The purpose of the study was to analyze the viability of developing a sensitive mass screening approach to detect the H5N1 influenza (bird flu) virus using a single step RT-PCR and automated HDA-GT12™ system.
The resulting report indicated that the HDA system, in combination with the Institute's single step RT-PCR assay, is a simple and sensitive assay for H5N1 avian influenza detection that can detect as few as 10 copies of the viral RNA.
Furthermore, the sample analysis rate in the HDA system is approximately two samples per minute, so a total of 96 samples in a 96-well plate can be analyzed in 50 minutes.
The eGene system can also be used as a portable H5N1 avian influenza detection tool in field operations, since collected digital data and analyzed results can be stored and transferred in electronic format.
"The spread of avian influenza is still a major concern in the world," said Dr. Ming S. Liu, chief executive officer of eGene.
"Continuous outbreaks of this highly pathogenic strain could unleash a pandemic that would have the potential to be as deadly to the population as the epidemic strain of influenza was in 1918."
"A fast, sensitive and low cost analysis to identify the contamination of the viral RNA in the poultry market can be one of the key factors to prevent the mass spread of the virus."
"We are pleased that eGene has been able to use the Genome Institute's H5N1 primers to develop a powerful and effective tool that may be applicable for bird flu screening."
eGene developed the HDA-GT12™ (high-performance DNA analyzer for genotyping on 12 channels), the system analyzes the genetic fingerprints of living organisms through microsatellites, AFLP and RFLP.
It performs DNA sample screening and high-resolution DNA fragment analysis (2-5bp).
The system is designed to analyze the quality and quantity of total RNA and cRNA, determines the efficiency of cRNA and cDNA amplification reactions, and ensures the quality of fragmented cRNA.
