Viruses, Volume 4, Issue 9

HIV-1 causes a chronic infection in humans that is characterized by high plasma viremia, progressive loss of CD4+ T lymphocytes, and severe immunodeficiency resulting in opportunistic disease and AIDS. Viral persistence is mediated in part by the abi...

The immune response against some viral pathogens, in particular those causing chronic infections, is often ineffective notwithstanding a robust humoral neutralizing response. Several evasion mechanisms capable of subverting the activity of neutralizi...

The family Geminiviridae comprises a group of plant-infecting circular ssDNA viruses that severely constrain agricultural production throughout the temperate regions of the world, and are a particularly serious threat to food security in sub-Saharan...

The Geminiviruses genome is a small, single strand DNA that replicates in the plant cell nucleus. Analogous to animal DNA viruses, Geminiviruses depend on the host replication machinery to amplify their genomes and only supply the factors required to...

Arenaviruses are enveloped, bipartite negative single-stranded RNA viruses that can cause a wide spectrum of disease in humans and experimental animals including hemorrhagic fever. The majority of these viruses are rodent-borne and the arenavirus fam...

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) subtype C is currently the predominant subtype worldwide. Cell culture studies of Sub-Saharan African subtype C proviral plasmids are hampered by the low replication capacity of the resulting viruses, a...

EBV and KSHV are both gamma-herpesviruses which express multiple viral microRNAs. Various methods have been used to investigate the functions of these microRNAs, largely through identification of microRNA target genes. Surprisingly, these related vir...

Viruses of the family Filoviridae represent significant health risks as emerging infectious diseases as well as potentially engineered biothreats. While many research efforts have been published offering possibilities toward the mitigation of filovir...

The Arenaviridae family includes widely distributed pathogens that cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans. Replication and packaging of their single-stranded RNA genome involve RNA recognition by viral proteins and a number of key protein-protein i...

Filovirus infection presents many unique challenges to patient management. Currently no approved treatments are available, and the recommendations for supportive care are not evidence based. The austere clinical settings in which patients often prese...