VirCapSeq

VirCapSeq is a system to broadly screen for all viral infections in vertebrates including humans.[1] It was designed by W. Ian Lipkin, Thomas Briese, and Amit Kapoor at Columbia University.[2]

The researchers created a library of 2 million 50 to 100-mer oligonucleotides based on viral genome sequences described in the European Molecular Biology Laboratory database that represented the coding sequences of all known vertebrate viruses.[3] They then developed an assay whereby addition of these probes to samples allowed recovery of complete viral genomic sequences, This assay is "VirCapSeq".[3]

  1. ^ Briese, Thomas; Kapoor, Amit; Mishra, Nischay; Jain, Komal; Kumar, Arvind; Jabado, Omar J.; Lipkin, W. Ian (22 September 2015). "Virome Capture Sequencing Enables Sensitive Viral Diagnosis and Comprehensive Virome Analysis". mBio. 6 (5): e01491-15. doi:10.1128/mBio.01491-15. PMC 4611031. PMID 26396248.
  2. ^ Yong, Ed (Sep 22, 2015). "New Technique Can Cheaply and Efficiently Detect All Known Human Viruses in a Blood Sample". theatlantic.com. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  3. ^ a b Heger, Monica (25 September 2015). "Columbia University Team Develops NGS Method to Screen for Viruses From Clinical Samples". genomeweb.com. Retrieved 7 October 2015.