Diagnostic PCR on Animal Diseases: From Extraction to Amplification

Dear Colleagues,

Rapid and sensitive diagnostic assays are key to surveillance, control and prevention of animal diseases. Failure of rapid diagnosis often results in disease outbreaks, which can be economically devastating for highly contagious transboundary animal diseases, for example, foot-and-mouth disease, classical swine fever and African swine fever, when slaughtering of the infected animals remains the only option to prevent the spread of the disease. Therefore, timely detection of the pathogen at the onset of the disease (pre-clinical) is extremely important.

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is widely used as one of the point of care (PC) diagnostic tools for sensitive and rapid detection of animal pathogens and, in theory, it has the ability to detect a single genome (DNA/RNA) copy (bacterium/virus particle) per assay.  Therefore, ideall,y PCR assays can detect pathogens in infected animals at the onset of the disease (pre-clinical). One of the challenges of PCR-based diagnosis is the false negatives (failure to detect the pathogens) which often occurs due to PCR inhibition caused by PCR inhibitors. The PCR inhibitors represent a diverse group of substances with different properties and mechanisms of action. Naturally occurring PCR inhibitors constitute various components of body fluids used as clinical specimens, for example, bile salts and complex polysaccharides in feces, heme in blood, glycogen and fats of tissues, proteinases in milk and urea in urine. These substances, if not removed during extractions, are co-purified with the final product (DNA/RNA) and exert their effect (inhibition) on PCR. Many commercially available nucleic acids (DNA/RNA) extraction kits are optimized to improve their capacity to remove PCR inhibitors during extractions, but they are not enough to yield clean template (DNA/RNA) to ensure reliable PCR results.

The aim of this Special Issue is to invite authors to submit original research articles, short reports, or reviews that highlight the current knowledge and latest advances on diagnostic PCR on animal diseases and PCR inhibition. A multiplex assay design with inclusion of an internal positive control (IPC) to detect and monitor the level of PCR inhibitors can be a good strategy.

We invite authors to submit their research papers covering the following or related topics:

• PCR inhibitors (diversity) and clinical specimens;
• PCR inhibition and false negative test results;
• Nucleic acids (DNA/RNA) extractions;
• Additives, enhancers and treatments that encounter/neutralize PCR inhibition;
• Inhibitor tolerant DNA polymerases.

Dr. Jessie Trujillo
Dr. Amaresh Das
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Veterinary Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• animal disease and pathogens
• molecular diagnosis and real-time PCR
• point of care (POC) diagnosis
• nucleic acids extractions
• PCR Inhibition and remedy
• thermostable DNA polymerases