Development of Real-Time DNA Based Diagnostics for WSSV Infections of Shrimp

The global shrimp industry (wild and farm raised) is currently valued at over $26 billion, and is suffering losses of billions of dollars annually because of disease. Unlike other food animal commodities, the shrimp culture industry is unable to protect their crop through vaccination due to a lack of a sophisticated immune system in shrimp. Therefore, the prevention of these devastating financial losses must be predicated on accurate early detection of pathogenic agents. However, at present there are only limited diagnostic modalities available to the industry. Those that are available are slow, expensive and technically exacting. The shrimp industry, both farm raised and wild caught, is in dire need of a spectrum of diagnostic products to meet their diversified testing requirements. Monoclonal antibody based enzyme immunoassays are being developed as a result of previous USDA/SBIR funding to help meet some of these market requirements. However, the lack of biomass to assay, the lethality of new pathogen-host interaction before sufficient antigenic material can be produced, and the latency aspects of certain of the viruses may relegate the use of capture immunoassays to quick screening assays or simple confirmatory technologies. The proposed research will demonstrate proof of concept in developing real- time, sensitive diagnostic formats using proven DNA probes and primers to the most economically important viral pathogen to the U.S. shrimp industry, White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV).