|Liu, H - MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY|
Submitted to: International Marek's Disease Symposium Abstracts and Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: September 7, 1996
Publication Date: N/A
Technical Abstract: A key goal of research on Marek's disease is to identify the gene(s) in the Marek's disease virus (MDV) that promote oncogenesis. One way to accomplish this goal is to identify the DNA mutations accompanying attenuation of oncogenic MDV strains acquired through serial passages in cell culture. In this study, we evaluated the potential of random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers to detect DNA polymorphisms between oncogenic and attenuated serotype 1 MDV strains. The RAPD marker technology is a variation of the standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) where a single primer of arbitrary sequence directs the synthesis of products, some of which may be polymorphic between samples. Five hundred 10-mer RAPD primers were employed in PCRs using total DNA isolated from MDV-infected cells. Thirty-two PCR products were identified that detected MDV-specific sequences and three of these products were polymorphic between noncogenic and attenuated derivatives. The three polymorphic bands were sequenced and mapped to four different MDV open reading frames. Thus, RAPD markers are able to detect rapidly DNA polymorphisms between viral strains indicating that this technology may be applicable to identifying important viral genes as well as providing molecular tags for MDV strains.