2012 December - 34 articles
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) enters cells through a series of molecular interactions between the HIV envelope protein and cellular receptors, thus providing many opportunities to block infection. Entry inhibitors are currently being used in...
Liver diseases, such as hepatitis C virus (HCV), are “broken spirit” diseases. The prevalence of HCV infection for American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) in the United States and Canadian Aboriginals varies; nonetheless, incidence rates of newly diag...
We describe herein, limitations on research at biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) containment laboratories, with regard to biosecurity regulations, safety considerations, research space limitations, and physical constraints in executing experimental procedure...
It has come to my attention that my article "Latest Insights on Adenovirus Structure and Assembly" (Viruses 2012, 4, 847-877) [1] contains an inaccurate statement. On page 864, the caption for Figure 7 reads: "There are four potential cleavage sites...
The ability of the host to trigger apoptosis in infected cells is perhaps the most powerful tool by which viruses can be cleared from the host organism. To avoid elimination by this mechanism, human papillomaviruses (HPV) have developed several mecha...
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) worldwide. Incidence rates of HPV infection among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals are well documented and are several-fold higher tha...
West Nile virus (WNV) continues to cause outbreaks of severe neuroinvasive disease in humans and other vertebrate animals in the United States, Europe, and other regions of the world. This review discusses our understanding of the interactions betwee...
Historically, mice and guinea pigs have been the rodent models of choice for therapeutic and prophylactic countermeasure testing against Ebola virus disease (EVD). Recently, hamsters have emerged as a novel animal model for the in vivo study of EVD. ...
We have previously shown that hMPV G protein (B2 lineage) interacts with cellular glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). In this study we examined subtypes A1, A2 and B1 for this interaction. GAG-dependent infectivity of available hMPV strains was demonstrated u...
Yardlong bean (Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis) plants with virus-like systemic mottling and leaf distortion were observed in both experimental and commercial fields in Aragua State, Venezuela. Symptomatic leaves were shown to contain carlavir...
Epidemiological data suggest that the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with several autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. However, it is not clear whether EBV plays a role in the...
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most common viral cause of childhood acute lower respiratory tract infections. It is estimated that RSV infections result in more than 100,000 deaths annually worldwide. Bovine RSV is a cause of enzootic pneum...
In the last 20 years, molecular ecology approaches have proven to be extremely useful to identify and assess factors associated with viral emerging diseases, particularly in economically and socially important tropical crops such as maize (maize stre...
In 2007, a novel coronavirus associated with an acute respiratory disease in alpacas (Alpaca Coronavirus, ACoV) was isolated. Full-length genomic sequencing of the ACoV demonstrated the genome to be consistent with other Alphacoronaviruses. A putativ...
Systems biology approaches in virology aim to integrate viral and host biological networks, and thus model the infection process. The growing availability of high-throughput “-omics” techniques and datasets, as well as the ever-increasing sophisticat...
Detailed knowledge of the host-virus interactions that accompany filovirus entry into cells is expected to identify determinants of viral virulence and host range, and to yield targets for the development of antiviral therapeutics. While it is genera...
Several global outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus have increased the urgency of developing effective and safe vaccines against H5N1. Compared with H5N1 inactivated vaccines used widely, H5N1 live-attenuated influenza vac...
A novel DNA vaccine vector encoding the Mycobacterium tuberculosis secreted antigen Ag85A fused with the influenza A virus (IAV) HA2 protein epitopes, pEGFP/Ag85A-sHA2 (pAg85A-sHA2), was designed to provide protection against influenza. The antigen e...
Human metapneumovirus (hMPV) is a recently identified RNA virus belonging to the Paramyxoviridae family, which includes several major human and animal pathogens. Epidemiological studies indicate that hMPV is a significant human respiratory pathogen...
Foamy virus (FV) vectors have shown great promise for hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene therapy. Their ability to efficiently deliver transgenes to multi-lineage long-term repopulating cells in large animal models suggests they will be effective for...
The filovirus plaque assay serves as the assay of choice to measure infectious virus in a cell culture, blood, or homogenized tissue sample. It has been in use for more than 30 years and is the generally accepted assay used to titrate virus in sample...
The worldwide prevalence of HCV infection is between 1% and 8% in pregnant women and between 0.05% and 5% in children. Yet the pathogenesis of hepatitis C during pregnancy and in the neonatal period remains poorly understood. Mother-to-child transmis...
Pneumonia Virus of Mice (PVM) is related to the human and bovine respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) pathogens, and has been used to study respiratory virus replication and the ensuing inflammatory response as a component of a natural host—pathogen rel...
Countering aerosolized filovirus infection is a major priority of biodefense research. Aerosol models of filovirus infection have been developed in knock-out mice, guinea pigs and non-human primates; however, filovirus infection of immunocompetent m...
Coronaviruses are single stranded, positive sense RNA viruses, which induce the rearrangement of cellular membranes upon infection of a host cell. This provides the virus with a platform for the assembly of viral replication complexes, improving effi...
The bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) is an enveloped, negative sense, single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the pneumovirus genus within the family Paramyxoviridae. BRSV has been recognized as a major cause of respiratory disease in young c...
The ubiquitous Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with several human tumors, which include lymphoid and epithelial malignancies. It is known that EBV persistently infects the memory B cell pool of healthy individuals by activating growth and surv...
Prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies are a unique category of infectious protein-misfolding neurodegenerative disorders. Hypothesized to be caused by misfolding of the cellular prion protein these disorders possess an infectiou...
Filoviruses cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans with high case-fatality rates. The cellular factors exploited by filoviruses for their spread constitute potential targets for intervention, but are incompletely defined. The viral glycoprotein (GP...
Avian influenza virus infections in the human population are rare due to their inefficient direct human-to-human transmission. However, when humans are infected, a strong inflammatory response is usually induced, characterized by elevated levels of c...
Due to their crucial role in pathogenesis and virulence, phages of Staphylococcus aureus have been extensively studied. Most of them encode and disseminate potent staphylococcal virulence factors. In addition, their movements contribute to the extrao...
Viruses can persistently infect differentiated cells through regulation of expression of both their own genes and those of the host cell, thereby evading detection by the host’s immune system and achieving residence in a non-lytic state. Models in vi...
Direct-acting antiviral drugs (DAAs) are currently replacing antiviral therapy for Hepatitis C infection. Treatment related side effects are even worse and the emergence of resistant viruses must be avoided because of the direct-antiviral action. Alt...
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is susceptible to cyclosporine (CsA) and other cyclophilin (CypA) inhibitors, but the genetic basis of susceptibility is controversial. Whether genetic variation in NS5A alters cell culture susceptibility of HCV to CypA inhibi...
