Development and application of molecular methods based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in rapid and direct identification of Newcastle disease virus strains and examination of immunogenicity of subunit vaccine prepared from their antigens

The subject of our investigation will be the development and application of molecular methods based on polymerase chain reaction in rapid and direct identification of ND virus strains and examination of immunogenicity of subunit vaccine prepared from their antigens. Besides the standard virological methods which are used for detection of ND virus in clinical samples, molecular methods based on polymerase chain reaction such as RT-PCR and Real-Time RT-PCR are also used nowadays. A number of clinical samples from poultry will be examined on the presence of ND virus by applying the abovementioned methods. The results of these investigations will be compared with the examination results of the same clinical samples obtained by using standard virological methods. The second part of our investigation will be related to examination of the immunogenicity of the subunit vaccine against ND virus prepared from glycoprotein antigens of isolated virus strains. It is well known that live – atenuated vaccines (prepared from lentogenic strains) and inactivated virus vaccines are in use today and that there is often risk of emergence of infection among immunized poultry after its application. Subunit vaccine prepared from immunogenic components of viral particle completely liberated from infective parts of the virion and pyrogens should enable the achievement of a more intensive immune response of vaccinated poultry and longer duration of specific immunity.