Teaching

Reception hours

Tuesday - Thursday 11.30-12.30 by reservation via email at the Infectious Diseases Section of the Department of Veterinary Medicine.

Alerts

No warnings

Educational materials

Allocated courses

Molecular microbiology and virology within the Hygiene course integrated with Molecular Microbiology and Virology (104 hours) - of the Three-year Degree course in Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (L2) at the Department of Biosciences, Biotechnologies and the Environment of the University of Bari Aldo Moro;

Molecular biology at the School of Specialization in "Infectious Diseases, Prophylaxis and Veterinary Police" (40 hours) of the Department of Veterinary Medicine University of Bari Aldo Moro;

Molecular biology applied to infectious diseases at the PhD School in "Animal Health and Zoonosis" (20 hours) of the Department of Veterinary Medicine University of Bari Aldo Moro

Didactic program Microbiology and molecular virology:

Frontal teaching:

- Structure of viruses;

- Biomolecular diagnostic techniques (nucleic acid extraction, PCR and electrophoresis in agarose gel and Real Time PCR);

-Traditional diagnostic techniques (cell cultures, monolayer infection, direct virological techniques, indirect serological techniques);

- Viral genomes;

-Classification of viruses;

-Viral replication

- Viral pathogenesis

-Evolution of viruses

-Fundamentals of microbiology

Practical activities and exercises:

-Laboratory instruments and extraction of nucleic acids;

-Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and agarose gel electrophoresis;

- Real Time PCR and cell cultures;

- Monolayer infection, viral titration, hemagglutination;

- Serum neutralization and haemagglutination inhibition;

- Immunofluorescence and ELISA.

Reference texts

Nigel J. Dimmock Andrew J. Easton Keith N. Leppard Introduction to Modern Virology Casa Editrice Ambrosiana. Exclusive distribution Zanichelli 2017

Lecture notes

Educational program Molecular biology:

-Introduction to molecular biology:

The structure of nucleic acids: DNA and RNA structure. Nitrogenous bases, nucleosides, nucleotides. Mechanism of DNA replication in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Structure of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genes. The DNA polymerase. genome expression. Transcription in prokaryotes and eukaryotes: mRNA initiation, elongation and termination/maturation. RNA polymerase.

-Molecular diagnosis of infectious diseases:

Samples in the diagnostic laboratory. Sample protocol. Nucleic acid extraction methods from different matrices using commercial kits and in-house techniques. Good Laboratory Practices and preanalytical and analytical variability of results. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Applications of the PCR technique (nested, multiplex, reverse transcription). Analysis of PCR products by agarose gel electrophoresis. Sensitivity, specificity and predictive value of molecular tests (false positives, false negatives).

-Quantitative methods of detection of nucleic acids:

Real-time (RT)-PCR. Difference between Endpoint (RT) PCR and Real Time (RT)-PCR. Real-time PCR chemistry. Sybr green chemistry and melting curves. Reporter chemistry: fluorescent probes. Taqman hydrolysis probes. MGB minor groove binder probes. Amplification curve. Threshold cycle. Relative and absolute nucleic acid quantification. Characterization of viral and bacterial agents of veterinary interest.

Didactic program Molecular biology applied to infectious diseases

Nucleic acid extraction methods from different matrices using commercial kits and in-house techniques. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Applications of the PCR technique (nested, multiplex, reverse transcription). Analysis of PCR products by agarose gel electrophoresis. Sensitivity, specificity and predictive value of molecular tests (false positives, false negatives). Real-time (RT)-PCR. Characterization of viral and bacterial agents of veterinary interest. New sequencing technologies - Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). Second generation sequencing platforms. Overview of third generation sequencing platforms. Metagenomics concept. Databases of biological sequences (NCBI and EBI). Sequence analysis bioinformatics tools. Application of specific tools for the management of the sequences extracted from databases. Sequence analysis and practical implications. Sequence alignments. Construction of phylogenetic trees.