Jilin Agricultural University 1 article published in JoVE Genetics Evaluation of a Universal Nested Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction for the Detection of Lyssaviruses Yuyang Wang*1, Weidi Xu*1,2, Huancheng Guo1, Wenjie Gong1, Biao He1, Zhongzhong Tu1, Changchun Tu1,3, Ye Feng1 1Key Laboratory of Jilin Province for Zoonosis Prevention and Control, Institute of Military Veterinary Medicine, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 2Jilin Agricultural University, 3Jiangsu Co-innovation Centre for Prevention and Control of Important Animal Infectious Diseases and Zoonoses A pan-lyssavirus nested reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction has been developed to detect specifically all known lyssaviruses. Validation using rabies brain samples of different animal species showed that this method has a sensitivity and specificity equivalent to the gold standard fluorescent antibody test and could be used for routine rabies diagnosis.