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Viral Infection in Humans: The Role of Immune System and Immunogenetics 2.0

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A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Microbiology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 10272

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Anna Aiello

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Guest Editor

Laboratory of Immunopathology and Immunosenescence, Department of Biomedicine, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostics, University of Palermo, 90134 Palermo, Italy
Interests: inflamm-aging; immunogenetics; nutritional interventions; positive biology; viral infections
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Giulia Accardi

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Guest Editor

Laboratory of Immunopathology and Immunosenescence, Department of Biomedicine, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostics, University of Palermo, Corso Tuköry, 211, 90134 Palermo, Italy
Interests: aging; nutrition; inflammation nutraceuticals; longevity; centenarians
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The COVID-19 outbreak has brought to light the necessity of being prepared for future pandemics.

To date, no vaccines exist against many viral infections, nor are there effective therapeutic strategies to eradicate the related diseases.

As demonstrated by recent discoveries regarding SARS-CoV-2, many viruses share similar mechanisms of action, although these can be different depending on age. As an example, the peculiarity of COVID-19 infection is that infants, children, and very old individuals, especially those that are longevous, show a sort of barrier against the virus or a surprising capacity to heal. An explanation could be found by analyzing the immune system mediators and studying the immunogenetic assets. What is their contribution?

This Special Issue will collect and present reviews and original studies in an attempt to find answers to this question proposed by the editors, summarizing and expanding upon the knowledge regarding the immune system and immunogenetic control in relation to responses to viral infections.

Papers could include and develop the following topics:

The role of immunogenetics in the control of viruses that can easily spread through the worldwide population;
The role of specific immune system mediators in viral diseases that can easily spread through the worldwide population;
The immunogenetic control of the production of immune system mediators and their role in the development of viruses that can easily spread through the worldwide population;
Case reports about interesting immunological responses to viruses that can easily spread through the worldwide population, as characterized from a molecular and biochemical point of view;

Dr. Anna Aiello
Dr. Giulia Accardi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

immune system
immunogenetics
viral infections
inflammation
pandemic infections

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 1127 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Distribution of KIR Genes and Their HLA Ligands in Different Viral Infectious Diseases: Frequency Study in Sicilian Population

by Mattia Emanuela Ligotti, Anna Aiello, Giulia Accardi, Anna Calabrò, Marcello Ciaccio, Claudia Colomba, Danilo Di Bona, Bruna Lo Sasso, Fanny Pojero, Antonino Tuttolomondo, Calogero Caruso, Giuseppina Candore and Giovanni Duro

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(24), 15466; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms232415466 - 07 Dec 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1597

Abstract

Natural killer (NK) cells play a role in defence against viral infections by killing infected cells or by producing cytokines and interacting with adaptive immune cells. Killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs) regulate the activation of NK cells through their interaction with human leucocyte antigens (HLA). Ninety-six Sicilian patients positive to Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV) and ninety-two Sicilian patients positive to SARS-CoV-2 were genotyped for KIRs and their HLA ligands. We also included fifty-six Sicilian patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) already recruited in our previous study. The aim of this study was to compare the distribution of KIR–HLA genes/groups of these three different infected populations with healthy Sicilian donors from the literature. We showed that the inhibitory KIR3DL1 gene and the KIR3DL1/HLA-B Bw4 pairing were more prevalent in individual CHB. At the same time, the frequency of HLA-C2 was increased in CHB compared to other groups. In contrast, the HLA-C1 ligand seems to have no contribution to CHB progression whereas it was significantly higher in COVID-19 and HIV-positive than healthy controls. These results suggest that specific KIR–HLA combinations can predict the outcome/susceptibility of these viral infections and allows to plan successful customized therapeutic strategies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Viral Infection in Humans: The Role of Immune System and Immunogenetics 2.0)

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Review

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15 pages, 2009 KiB

Open AccessReview

Hand-Foot-and-Mouth Disease-Associated Enterovirus and the Development of Multivalent HFMD Vaccines

by Xinglong Zhang, Yifan Zhang, Heng Li and Longding Liu

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(1), 169; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24010169 - 22 Dec 2022

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 3479

Abstract

Hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) is an infectious disease of children caused by more than 20 types of enteroviruses, with most cases recovering spontaneously within approximately one week. Severe HFMD in individual children develops rapidly, leading to death, and is associated with other complications such as viral myocarditis and type I diabetes mellitus. The approval and marketing of three inactivated EV-A71 vaccines in China in 2016 have provided a powerful tool to curb the HFMD epidemic but are limited in cross-protecting against other HFMD-associated enteroviruses. This review focuses on the epidemiological analysis of HFMD-associated enteroviruses since the inactivated EV-A71 vaccine has been marketed, collates the progress in the development of multivalent enteroviruses vaccines in different technical routes reported in recent studies, and discusses issues that need to be investigated for safe and effective HFMD multivalent vaccines. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Viral Infection in Humans: The Role of Immune System and Immunogenetics 2.0)

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20 pages, 964 KiB

Open AccessReview

STAT1 and Its Crucial Role in the Control of Viral Infections

by Manlio Tolomeo, Andrea Cavalli and Antonio Cascio

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(8), 4095; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23084095 - 07 Apr 2022

Cited by 45 | Viewed by 4552

Abstract

The signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) 1 protein plays a key role in the immune response against viruses and other pathogens by transducing, in the nucleus, the signal from type I, type II and type III IFNs. STAT1 activates the transcription of hundreds of genes, some of which have been well characterized for their antiviral properties. STAT1 gene deletion in mice and complete STAT1 deficiency in humans both cause rapid death from severe infections. STAT1 plays a key role in the immunoglobulin class-switch recombination through the upregulation of T-bet; it also plays a key role in the production of T-bet+ memory B cells that contribute to tissue-resident humoral memory by mounting an IgG response during re-infection. Considering the key role of STAT1 in the antiviral immune response, many viruses, including dangerous viruses such as Ebola and SARS-CoV-2, have developed different mechanisms to inhibit this transcription factor. The search for drugs capable of targeting the viral proteins implicated in both viral replication and IFN/STAT1 inhibition is important for the treatment of the most dangerous viral infections and for future viral pandemics, as shown by the clinical results obtained with Paxlovid in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Viral Infection in Humans: The Role of Immune System and Immunogenetics 2.0)

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