FULL PAPER Virology Evaluation of the Reverse Transcription Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (RT-LAMP) as a Screening Method for the Detection of Influenza Viruses in the Fecal Materials of Water Birds

ABSTRACT. Migratory water birds are a natural reservoir for influenza A viruses. Viruses replicate in the intestines of ducks and are shed with the fecal materials. Virus isolation from collected fecal materials, therefore, is an integral part of the surveillance of avian influenza in water birds. In the present study, reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) was assessed for its use-fulness in detecting the RNA of influenza A viruses in fecal materials. It was found that, RT-LAMP specifically and sensitively detects the matrix gene of influenza A viruses. Influenza A viruses were isolated from the fecal materials in which viral RNA were detected by RT-LAMP in 35 min. The present findings indicate that RT-LAMP is useful as a high throughput screening method for field samples prior to virus isolation, allowing the processing of hundreds of samples per day. KEY WORDS: fecal material, influenza virus, reverses transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP), screening, surveil-lance. J. Vet. Med. Sci. 73(6): 753–758, 2011 Influenza A viruses originate from non-pathogenic viruses that are circulating in migratory water birds, espe-cially in ducks, and their nesting lake water [18, 29]. Influ-enza A viruses have two surface glycoproteins, the hemagglutinin (HA) and the neuraminidase (NA), and ar