Principal Investigator: Gary Whittaker

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): 

We propose to develop fine needle aspirates (FNA)s as a convincing and practical means of antemortem testing for feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). The lymph node is well recognized as having a high viral load for feline coronavirus (FCoV) even in the absence of clinical signs. Our preliminary data show that the lymph node can be highly predictive in distinguishing FECV from FIPV by viral sequence analysis.  By combining the known high specificity that can be achieved with this test, and combining the high specificity and sensitivity that can be achieved by qPCR for cats having a high index of suspicion of FIP with the inclusion of nanopore-based next generation sequencing (NGS), we aim to improve the diagnosis of cats, especially those with a lower index of suspicion of FIP. Specifically, the use of "Flongle" platform allows our existing minION approach to be adapted for smaller, rapid, frequent tests that can easily be adapted to a veterinary diagnostic lab situation. We will also explore the use of our novel RNA-based histochemistry probes as a more routine diagnostic test that may be useful in the absence of sequence analysis.