Greetings Bionauts,
I am looking for viruses in locally occuring crustaceans and a part of my
project is to isolate nucleic acid from potential viruses, restrict it and
clone it to develop probes for in situ hybridisation and also to design
primers for PCR. Further, I want to use degenerate primers for known
groups of crustacean viruses to check whether similar viruses occur in my
target animals. The institute has asked me to submit a Genetic
Manipulation Risk Assessment for cloning of restriction fragments
or PCR products (both < 800bp).
I need your advise on some comments which feel I cannot answer
satisfactotily at present: To your knowledge, are any crustacean viruses
potential human pathogens? (None of the 29 described viruses I am aware of
has been suggested to be harmful to humans, but independent advise on this
would be welcome). Secondly, what size are viral genes likely to be? The
committee is worried that the restriction fragments or PCR products might
be inadvertendly expressed and prove to be harmful to humans.
Thanks for your help,
Denni
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Denni Schnapp
Institute of Aquaclture
University of Stirling
Stirling FK9 4LA
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