Creation of a bacteria surrogate to accelerate research on Ebolavirus Zaire

Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) is a devastating illness with
high infectivity and mortality rates. The 2014 West African
EVD outbreak was unprecedented in case numbers
and fatalities, and has highlighted the need to
develop rapid Point of Care detection devices. Progress
in the diagnosis and treatment of highly virulent
pathogens like the Ebola virus is often limited by the
small number of labs adequately equipped to handle
them. This study is one of the first to aim at developing
a non-pathogenic bacterium surrogate, containing
a stable EBV gene for subsequent detection studies.
Our approach entailed the use of synthetic biology,
to design a recombinant vector containing the Ebola
virus glycoprotein (GP) gene. The synthetic gene was
spliced into a E.coli pUC19 plasmid vector by ligation
and subsequently transformed into competent E. coli
by cloning techniques. This Ebola virus surrogate will
assist in further Ebola diagnostic platform design and
testing.