Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV)

Dear Colleagues,

Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) is a vector-borne rhabdovirus affecting horses, cattle, swine, small ruminants, lamas, and alpacas, among other species. In cattle and pigs, the disease resembles foot and mouth disease, a devastating transboundary animal disease. Humans can become infected when handling affected animals, or in laboratory exposures, causing non-lethal flu-like illness. Incursions of VSV into the US from endemic regions in Southern Mexico occur sporadically at 5–10-year intervals. However, the epidemiology and environmental factors mediating incursion and transmission remain poorly understood. In addition to being a pathogen of agricultural concern, VSV is the prototype single-stranded negative-sense RNA virus used to understand molecular virology, virus evolution, viral transcription and replication, innate immune evasion, and adaptive immune response to viral infections. This knowledge has come from classical virology and from reverse genetics. VSV was among the first negative-strand RNA viruses to have a reverse genetic system, which led to the development of VSV as a vaccine vector, in immune therapy, and as an oncolytic virus vector used in human clinical trials.

In this Special Issue, we will explore novel insights into VSV and address long-standing unanswered questions about disease ecology, pathogenesis, and how VSV became a tool to fight infectious diseases and cancer. Topics covered will include the following: pathogenesis, innate immune evasion, virus–vector interactions, virus–host interactions, epidemiology, entry, assembly, replication, transcription, vaccine platforms, and vectored oncolytics.

Dr. Chad Mire
Dr. Luis L. Rodriguez
Dr. Andrea Marzi
Prof. Dr. Michael A. Whitt
Guest Editors

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