Abstract:
Recent incidences of emerging arbovirus (arthropod-borne) disease outbreaks have led to heavy losses globally.
Molecular virology offers a range of methods, able to accelerate and improve the diagnosis of arbovirus diseases
but these rely heavily on the availability of robust PCR-based markers of the causative agents. The great genetic
diversity exhibited by viral genomes makes it difficult to design specific signatures or markers since most methods
start with a multiple sequence alignment (MSA). This study aimed at exploring the use of recently developed
software (PriMux) prototyped on viral pathogens, that designs multiplex compatible degenerate primers without
need for an initial MSA. It was used to design family-specific molecular signatures for arboviruses and members
from the bunyaviridae and togaviridae virus families were used as models.
