Honors Theses
Date of Award
Spring 5-7-2026
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Biology
First Advisor
Wayne Gray
Second Advisor
Colin Jackson
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
This study examines genetic variation among strains of Simian Varicella Virus (SVV) using genomic analysis. The primary goal of this experiment was to observe potential genomic differences among the Liverpool vervet virus (LVV), the Tsukuba herpesvirus, and the Delta herpesvirus (DHV) strains using primer sets developed from the fully sequenced DHV strain. SVV strains were initially cultivated in Vero cell cultures to begin viral propagation. Viral proliferation in these cell cultures enables DNA isolation via standard purification methods. The extracted viral DNA is subjected to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification targeting specific regions of open reading frames (ORFs) in the genome. The PCR products were then analyzed using gel electrophoresis to determine the presence of these genomic regions in the DNA of different strains. Results from this analysis indicate a high degree of genomic homology among the variant strains, and the consistent amplification patterns suggest that these genes are highly conserved, with no significant mutations detected in this study. Overall, the findings of this experiment demonstrate that variant strains of SVV share a strong similarity in key regions of their genetic code. The results also support the reliability of using primer sets developed from one strain to analyze variant strains. This genetic consistency between outbreaks provides useful information for future studies on SVV genetics and viral understanding.
Recommended Citation
Waits, Ellyn M., "Determining the Relatedness of Simian Varicella Virus Strains using Polymerase Chain Reactions and Delta Herpesvirus-Dervied Primers" (2026). Honors Theses. 3553.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/3553
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Animal Diseases Commons, Disease Modeling Commons, Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms Commons, Virus Diseases Commons