Viral Detection Microarray Analysis of Unknown Tropical Febrile Illness Cases

This study aimed to use pan-viral detection microarrays to identify viruses in serum from cases of acute pediatric febrile illness in a tropical setting. Patient clinical data and serum samples were collected between 2005 and 2009 as part of an ongoing pediatric dengue virus study at the Hospital Infantil Manuel de Jesús Rivera in Managua, Nicaragua. This study focused on patients who presented with dengue-like illness but who tested negative for dengue-virus infection. We hypothesized that non-dengue viruses or previously uncharacterized viruses might be causing these illnesses. The Virochip microarray is capable of detecting known viruses and discovering novel viruses. This series includes 153 arrays corresponding to 148 cases and 5 HeLa controls. Keywords: viral detection, tropical febrile illness, dengue virus, Nicaragua, Virochip From each serum sample, total nucleic acid was extracted and used to prepare a randomly-primed dsDNA library. These libraries were fluorescently labeled and hybrized to Virochip arrays.