Pirbright researchers, in collaboration with New England Biolabs, Inc., have developed an innovative approach to study infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), a highly infectious poultry pathogen.

The new method, published in PLoS ONE, will allow quicker response to IBV, particularly in vaccine development, curbing the spread of the contagious disease.

IBV is a coronavirus that causes the respiratory disease infectious bronchitis and is a major problem for the global poultry industry, causing significant welfare issues and economic losses. Controlling the virus is a challenge due to rapid mutation of the virus and existing vaccines offering poor cross-protection against different strains.

Research at Pirbright has focussed on studying individual IBV genes to enhance our understanding of the disease and develop better vaccines. Previous methods for studying the IBV genome have been slow and time-consuming.

The research team, led by Pirbright’s Dr Sarah Keep and New England Biolabs’ Dr Greg Lohman, used a data-optimized Golden Gate Assembly process to develop a more efficient reverse genetics approach for studying IBV.

The system offers a simplified, rapid approach to investigate the biology of the virus. The system’s flexibility also means it can be applied rapidly to study emerging IBV variants for the development of targeted vaccines.

Dr Sarah Keep, a senior molecular virologist in the Coronaviruses group, said “This new system is a game-changer for our research on IBV and will allow us to develop vaccines to control the spread of this challenging virus.”

Beyond IBV, the method could potentially be used to study other coronaviruses and other large genome viruses, accelerating research and development of vaccines and treatments for various viral diseases.