Workshop and stakeholder meeting

Molecular tracing of viral diseases in aquaculture

A workshop on Molecular tracing of viral diseases in aquaculture will be held in Montpellier, France

January 26 – 29th, 2015.

Location:   Université de Montpellier 2, place Eugene Bataillon 34095 Montpellier, France

 Organizer(s):  MOLTRAQ

 Draft program subject to changes: Workshop-PROGRAM Contact: Tatiana Vallaeys tvallaey@univ-montp2.fr Niels Jørgen Olesen njol@vet.dtu.dk Britt Bang Jensen britt-bang.jensen@vetinst.no

Please go here for more information and registration: MOLTRAQ workshop

Status on the MOLTRAQ-project so far (October 2013)

One of the main aims of the project is to assemble molecular and epidemiological information on virus isolates and virus sequences available in the virus collections of the participating partners. Thus, in the first part of the project a method for collecting an overview have been discussed and settled upon, and the partners are steadily filling in the information. This overview has been used to select sequences suitable for studies of evolutionary relationships among groups of virus isolates, and for full-genome sequencing (determining the complete DNA or RNA sequence of virus’ genome). In addition detailed information on each specific isolate and/or sequence will be uploaded to the databases in the http://www.fishpathogens.eu website for those virus families where databases were already in place and working (Viral Hemorrhagic septicaemia virus (VHSV) and Infectious haematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV). For some of those virus families where databases are not yet available, the work has started on building these (for salmonid alphaviruses and betanodaviruses).

Studies on evolutionary relationships between virus isolates have so far been performed on VHSV and Eel rhabdoviruses. Results of the latter were recently presented at an international conference and are currently being worked into a manuscript. Further, a novel approach to study the long term evolution of herpes viruses was presented at the same conference. A paper on the evolutionary relationships of ostreid herpesvirus 1 is also under preparation.

In order to study the mechanisms that determine the ability of a virus to infect a fish and cause disease (the virulence of the virus), a few isolates of koi herpes virus (KHV) has been grown in cell cultures at different temperatures and for a different number of passages, in order to obtain an adaptation to cells and an attenuation of virulence on fish. Subsequently, the sequences of the isolates thus obtained are being compared in order to identify which genes could be involved in the virulence.

In addition to these studies on evolution and virulence, the project aims at discovering the means of transmission of viruses though the combination of molecular analysis and epidemiological studies. A model has already been developed for the spread of salmonid alphaviruses in Norway, and a manuscript is under preparation. Currently, production and epidemiological data are being obtained from Denmark, to be used in a corresponding study on transmission of VHSV in freshwater aquaculture.

So far, three physical meeting have been held within the project:  A kick-off meeting, the 1^st progress meeting and a progress meeting specifically for two of the workpackages. In addition, three phone conferences have been held.

Three oral presentations and three posters were presented at the 16^th International conference on Diseases in Fish and Shellfish in Tampere, Finland in September 2013.

Finally, a project homepage has been set up: https://moltraq.wordpress.com/

Here, news on the project and publications are presented.

MOLTRAQ at EAFP!

The MOLTRAQ project will be well presented at the upcoming 16th International Conference on Diseases of Fish and Shellfish in Finland in September.

Four abstracts have been accepted for oral presentations and two about the project as poster presentations. The four oral presentations are:

1)      SPATIO-TEMPORAL RISK FACTORS FOR VIRAL HAEMORRHAGIC SEPTICAEMIA IN DANISH AQUACULTURE. B. Bang Jensen*¹, A.K. Ersbøll², H. Korsholm³, H.F. Skall⁴ and N.J. Olesen⁴

2)      GENETIC DIVERSITY OF ANGUILLID RHABDOVIRUS  USING N, P AND G GENES. L. Bellec^1,2*, J. Cabon^{1, 2}, M. Engelsma³,T. Morin^1,2, N.J. Olesen⁴, H. Schutze⁵, K. Way⁶, L. Bigarré^1,2

3)      ERADICATION OF VIRAL HAEMORRHAGIC SEPTICAEMIA IN DANISH AQUACULTURE. N.J. Olesen*¹, H.F. Skall¹ , B. Bang Jensen², N. H. Henriksen³, S. Mellergård⁴ and H. Korsholm⁵

4)      COMPARATIVE GENOMICS OF HERPES VIRUSES, A PARADIGM FOR HOST PARASITE CO-EVOLUTION. T. Vallaeys, J. Damas, L. Frangeul, N. Berthet, I. Ben Chobba, J.-C. Avarre, T. Renault, A. Gessain

And the two posters are:

1)      MOLECULAR  TRACING OF VIRAL PATHOGENS IN AQUACULTURE-A MULTIDISCIPLINARY TRANS-EUROPEAN RESEARCH PROJECT.B. Bang Jensen*¹, P.A. Jansen¹, N.J. Olesen², L.Bigarré³, H. Schuetze⁴, S.M. Bergmann⁴, T. Renault⁵, J.-C. Avarre⁶, M.Aldrin⁷ and E. Brun¹

2)      FISHPATHOGENS.EU/NODA: A FREE AND HANDY ONLINE PLATFORM FOR BETANODAVIRUS TARGETED RESEARCH AND DATA SHARING. V. Panzarin¹, S.S. Mikkelsen², S.P. Jonstrup², L. Bigarré³, M. Baud³, T. Gray⁴, P.M. Agapow⁵, N.J. Olesen²

We hope that many will see us there, and participate in the discussions of the results presented.

Montpellier

Kick-off meeting in Montpellier 24th-25th of October 2012.