Articles

An overview of molecular epidemiology of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in India

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is one of the major global public health problems. In India, HBsAg prevalence among general population ranges from 2% to 8%, placing India in intermediate HBV endemicity zone and the nu...

Authors: Sibnarayan Datta

A simple and rapid Hepatitis A Virus (HAV) titration assay based on antibiotic resistance of infected cells: evaluation of the HAV neutralization potency of human immune globulin preparations

Hepatitis A virus (HAV), the causative agent of acute hepatitis in humans, is an atypical Picornaviridae that grows poorly in cell culture. HAV titrations are laborious and time-consuming because the virus in ...

Authors: Krishnamurthy Konduru, Maria Luisa Virata-Theimer, Mei-ying W Yu and Gerardo G Kaplan

Central nervous system Toll-like receptor expression in response to Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus-induced demyelination disease in resistant and susceptible mouse strains

In immunopathological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis (MS), genetic and environmental factors that contribute to the initiation and progression of the disease are often discussed. The Theiler murine encep...

Authors: Nicolas P Turrin

Avian reovirus L2 genome segment sequences and predicted structure/function of the encoded RNA-dependent RNA polymerase protein

The orthoreoviruses are infectious agents that possess a genome comprised of 10 double-stranded RNA segments encased in two concentric protein capsids. Like virtually all RNA viruses, an RNA-dependent RNA poly...

Authors: Wanhong Xu and Kevin M Coombs

An analysis of the subtypes of dengue fever infections in Barbados 2003–2007 by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction

To perform a retrospective analysis of patients with IgM antibodies to dengue fever infection to determine the serotypes present by molecular techniques. A representative sample (~20%/per year) of patients dia...

Authors: M Gittens-St Hilaire and Nicole Clarke-Greenidge

Identification and characterization of a new E3 ubiquitin ligase in white spot syndrome virus involved in virus latency

White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is one major pathogen in shrimp aquaculture. WSSV ORF403 is predicted to encode a protein of 641 amino acids, which contains a C3H2C2 RING structure. In the presence of an E2 c...

Authors: Fang He and Jimmy Kwang

Evolutionary and structural analyses of alpha-papillomavirus capsid proteins yields novel insights into L2 structure and interaction with L1

PVs (PV) are small, non-enveloped, double-stranded DNA viruses that have been identified as the primary etiological agent for cervical cancer and their potential for malignant transformation in mucosal tissue ...

Authors: John Lowe, Debasis Panda, Suzanne Rose, Ty Jensen, Willie A Hughes, For Yue Tso and Peter C Angeletti

Influenza and Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation

Authors: Lewis J Radonovich, Richard A Martinello, Michael Hodgson, Donald K Milton and Edward A Nardell

Functional characterization of the vaccinia virus I5 protein

The I5L gene is one of ~90 genes that are conserved throughout the chordopoxvirus family, and hence are presumed to play vital roles in the poxvirus life cycle. Previous work had indicated that the VP13 protei...

Authors: Bethany Unger, R Jeremy Nichols, Eleni S Stanitsa and Paula Traktman

Phylogenetic analysis of the non-structural (NS) gene of influenza A viruses isolated from mallards in Northern Europe in 2005

Although the important role of the non-structural 1 (NS) gene of influenza A in virulence of the virus is well established, our knowledge about the extent of variation in the NS gene pool of influenza A viruses i...

Authors: Siamak Zohari, Péter Gyarmati, Anneli Ejdersund, Ulla Berglöf, Peter Thorén, Maria Ehrenberg, György Czifra, Sándor Belák, Jonas Waldenström, Björn Olsen and Mikael Berg

Occult hepatitis B infection: an evolutionary scenario

Occult or latent hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is defined as infection with detectable HBV DNA and undetectable surface antigen (HBsAg) in patients' blood. The cause of an overt HBV infection becoming an o...

Authors: Formijn J van Hemert, Hans L Zaaijer, Ben Berkhout and Vladimir V Lukashov

Effects of vaccinia virus uracil DNA glycosylase catalytic site and deoxyuridine triphosphatase deletion mutations individually and together on replication in active and quiescent cells and pathogenesis in mice

Low levels of uracil in DNA result from misincorporation of dUMP or cytosine deamination. Vaccinia virus (VACV), the prototype poxvirus, encodes two enzymes that can potentially reduce the amount of uracil in ...

Authors: Frank S De Silva and Bernard Moss

Passive immunization against highly pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) strain H7N3 with antiserum generated from viral polypeptides protect poultry birds from lethal viral infection

Our studies were aimed at developing a vaccination strategy that could provide protection against highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (AIV), H7N3 or its variants outbreaks. A purified viral stock of highly...

Authors: Mirza Imran Shahzad, Khalid Naeem, Muhammad Mukhtar and Azra Khanum

Recombination analysis of Soybean mosaic virus sequences reveals evidence of RNA recombination between distinct pathotypes

RNA recombination is one of the two major factors that create RNA genome variability. Assessing its incidence in plant RNA viruses helps understand the formation of new isolates and evaluate the effectiveness ...

Authors: Alla G Gagarinova, Mohan Babu, Martina V Strömvik and Aiming Wang

Selective receptor expression restricts Nipah virus infection of endothelial cells

Nipah virus (NiV) is a highly pathogenic paramyxovirus that causes severe diseases in animals and humans. Endothelial cell (EC) infection is an established hallmark of NiV infection in vivo. Despite systemic viru...

Authors: Stephanie Erbar, Sandra Diederich and Andrea Maisner

Conserved positive selection signals in gp41 across multiple subtypes and difference in selection signals detectable in gp41 sequences sampled during acute and chronic HIV-1 subtype C infection

The high diversity of HIV variants driving the global AIDS epidemic has caused many to doubt whether an effective vaccine against the virus is possible. However, by identifying the selective forces that are dr...

Authors: Gama P Bandawe, Darren P Martin, Florette Treurnicht, Koleka Mlisana, Salim S Abdool Karim and Carolyn Williamson

Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Us3 Gene Deletion Influences Toll-like Receptor Responses in Cultured Monocytic Cells

Toll-like receptors have a key role in innate immune response to microbial infection. The toll-like receptor (TLR) family consists of ten identified human TLRs, of which TLR2 and TLR9 have been shown to initia...

Authors: Piritta Peri, Riikka K Mattila, Helena Kantola, Eeva Broberg, Heidi S Karttunen, Matti Waris, Tytti Vuorinen and Veijo Hukkanen

Analysis of the nucleotide sequence of the guinea pig cytomegalovirus (GPCMV) genome

In this report we describe the genomic sequence of guinea pig cytomegalovirus (GPCMV) assembled from a tissue culture-derived bacterial artificial chromosome clone, plasmid clones of viral restriction fragment...

Authors: Mark R Schleiss, Alistair McGregor, K Yeon Choi, Shailesh V Date, Xiaohong Cui and Michael A McVoy

Plaque assay for human coronavirus NL63 using human colon carcinoma cells

Coronaviruses cause a broad range of diseases in animals and humans. Human coronavirus (hCoV) NL63 is associated with up to 10% of common colds. Viral plaque assays enable the characterization of virus infecti...

Authors: Petra Herzog, Christian Drosten and Marcel A Müller

The YPLGVG sequence of the Nipah virus matrix protein is required for budding

Nipah virus (NiV) is a recently emerged paramyxovirus capable of causing fatal disease in a broad range of mammalian hosts, including humans. Together with Hendra virus (HeV), they comprise the genus Henipavirus ...

Authors: Jared R Patch, Ziying Han, Sarah E McCarthy, Lianying Yan, Lin-Fa Wang, Ronald N Harty and Christopher C Broder

Ex vivo promoter analysis of antiviral heat shock cognate 70B gene in Anopheles gambiae

The Anopheles gambiae heat shock cognate gene (hsc70B) encodes a constitutively expressed protein in the hsp70 family and it functions as a molecular chaperone for protein folding. However, the expression of hsc7...

Authors: Seokyoung Kang, Cheolho Sim, Brian D Byrd, Frank H Collins and Young S Hong

A novel cloning strategy for isolating, genotyping and phenotyping genetic variants of geminiviruses

Viruses of the genus Begomovirus (Geminiviridae) are emerging economically important plant viruses with a circular, single-stranded DNA genome. Previous studies have shown that geminiviruses and RNA viruses exhib...

Authors: Cica Urbino, Gael Thébaud, Martine Granier, Stéphane Blanc and Michel Peterschmitt

The incidence of acute encephalitis syndrome in Western industrialised and tropical countries

As part of efforts to control Japanese encephalitis (JE), the World Health Organization is producing a set of standards for JE surveillance, which require the identification of patients with acute encephalitis...

Authors: Fidan Jmor, Hedley CA Emsley, Marc Fischer, Tom Solomon and Penny Lewthwaite

Modeling the effects of drug resistant influenza virus in a pandemic

Neuraminidase inhibitors (NI) play a major role in plans to mitigate future influenza pandemics. Modeling studies suggested that a pandemic may be contained at the source by early treatment and prophylaxis wit...

Authors: Stefan O Brockmann, Markus Schwehm, Hans-Peter Duerr, Mark Witschi, Daniel Koch, Beatriz Vidondo and Martin Eichner

Non coding extremities of the seven influenza virus type C vRNA segments: effect on transcription and replication by the type C and type A polymerase complexes

The transcription/replication of the influenza viruses implicate the terminal nucleotide sequences of viral RNA, which comprise sequences at the extremities conserved among the genomic segments as well as vari...

Authors: Bernadette Crescenzo-Chaigne, Cyril Barbezange and Sylvie van der Werf

Elicitation of protective immune responses using a bivalent H5N1 VLP vaccine

Currently licensed human vaccines are subtype-specific and do not protect against pandemic H5N1 viruses. Previously, our group has reported on the construction of an influenza virus-like particle (VLP) as a ne...

Authors: Corey J Crevar and Ted M Ross

Neutralizing human monoclonal antibody against H5N1 influenza HA selected from a Fab-phage display library

Identification of neutralizing antibodies with specificity away from the traditional mutation prone antigenic regions, against the conserved regions of hemagglutinin from H5N1 influenza virus has the potential...

Authors: Angeline PC Lim, Conrad EZ Chan, Steven KK Wong, Annie HY Chan, Eng Eong Ooi and Brendon J Hanson

Adaptation to cell culture induces functional differences in measles virus proteins

Live, attenuated measles virus (MeV) vaccine strains were generated by adaptation to cell culture. The genetic basis for the attenuation of the vaccine strains is unknown. We previously reported that adaptatio...

Authors: Bettina Bankamp, Judith M Fontana, William J Bellini and Paul A Rota

Detection and characterization of chicken anemia virus from commercial broiler breeder chickens

Chicken anemia virus (CAV) is the causative agent of chicken infectious anemia (CIA). Study on the type of CAV isolates present and their genetic diversity, transmission to their progeny and level of protectio...

Authors: Zerihun Hailemariam, Abdul Rahman Omar, Mohd Hair-Bejo and Tan Ching Giap

Respiratory syncytial virus glycoproteins uptake occurs through clathrin-mediated endocytosis in a human epithelial cell line

Cell-surface viral proteins most frequently enter the cell through clathrin or caveolae endocytosis. Respiratory syncytial virus antigen internalization by immune cells is via caveolin, however, uptake of para...

Authors: Abel Gutiérrez-Ortega, Carla Sánchez-Hernández and Beatriz Gómez-García

A comparative analysis of viral matrix proteins using disorder predictors

A previous study (Goh G.K.-M., Dunker A.K., Uversky V.N. (2008) Protein intrinsic disorder toolbox for comparative analysis of viral proteins. BMC Genomics. 9 (Suppl. 2), S4) revealed that HIV matrix protein p17 ...

Authors: Gerard Kian-Meng Goh, A Keith Dunker and Vladimir N Uversky

The product of the Herpes simplex virus 1 UL7 gene interacts with a mitochondrial protein, adenine nucleotide translocator 2

The herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) UL7 gene is highly conserved among herpesviridae. Since the construction of recombinant HSV-1 with a mutation in the UL7 gene has not been reported, the involvement of HSV-1 UL7...

Authors: Michiko Tanaka, Tetsutaro Sata and Yasushi Kawaguchi

Molecular characterization and complete genome sequence of avian paramyxovirus type 4 prototype strain duck/Hong Kong/D3/75

Avian paramyxoviruses (APMVs) are frequently isolated from domestic and wild birds throughout the world. All APMVs, except avian metapneumovirus, are classified in the genus Avulavirus of the family Paramyxovirid...

Authors: Baibaswata Nayak, Sachin Kumar, Peter L Collins and Siba K Samal

Widespread distribution and a new recombinant species of Brazilian virus associated with cotton blue disease

Cotton blue disease (CBD), an important global cotton crop pathology responsible for major economic losses, is prevalent in the major cotton-producing states of Brazil. Typical CBD symptoms include stunting du...

Authors: TF Silva, RL Corrêa, Y Castilho, P Silvie, J-L Bélot and MFS Vaslin

The genome and proteome of the Kluyvera bacteriophage Kvp1 – another member of the T7-like Autographivirinae

Kluyvera, a genus within the family Enterobacteriaceae, is an infrequent cause of human infections. Bacteriophage Kvp1, the only bacteriophage isolated for one of its species, Kluyvera cryocrescens, is a member o...

Authors: Erika J Lingohr, Andre Villegas, Yi-Min She, Pieter-Jan Ceyssens and Andrew M Kropinski

Immune response during acute Chandipura viral infection in experimentally infected susceptible mice

Age dependent susceptibility was observed in Chandipura virus (CHPV) infected mice through intravenous and intraperitoneal route. Adult mice were susceptible only through intracerebral route of infection. Imma...

Authors: Anukumar Balakrishnan and Akhilash Chandra Mishra

Genetic characterization of Measles Viruses in China, 2004

Genetic characterization of wild-type measles virus was studied using nucleotide sequencing of the C-terminal region of the N protein gene and phylogenetic analysis on 59 isolates from 16 provinces of China in...

Authors: Yan Zhang, Yixin Ji, Xiaohong Jiang, Songtao Xu, Zhen Zhu, Lei Zheng, Jilan He, Hua Ling, Yan Wang, Yang Liu, Wen Du, Xuelei Yang, Naiying Mao and Wenbo Xu

Could FIV zoonosis responsible of the breakdown of the pathocenosis which has reduced the European CCR5-Delta32 allele frequencies?

In Europe, the north-south downhill cline frequency of the chemokine receptor CCR5 allele with a 32-bp deletion (CCR5-Δ32) raises interesting questions for evolutionary biologists. We had suggested first that, in...

Authors: Eric Faure

Cutaneous and mucosal human papillomaviruses differ in net surface charge, potential impact on tropism

Papillomaviruses can roughly be divided into two tropism groups, those infecting the skin, including the genus beta PVs, and those infecting the mucosa, predominantly genus alpha PVs. The L1 capsid protein det...

Authors: Nitesh Mistry, Carl Wibom and Magnus Evander

Complete genome sequence of a highly divergent astrovirus isolated from a child with acute diarrhea

Astroviruses infect a variety of mammals and birds and are causative agents of diarrhea in humans and other animal hosts. We have previously described the identification of several sequence fragments with limi...

Authors: Stacy R Finkbeiner, Carl D Kirkwood and David Wang

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) attachment and nonstructural proteins modify the type I interferon response associated with suppressor of cytokine signaling (SOCS) proteins and IFN-stimulated gene-15 (ISG15)

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of severe lower airway disease in infants and young children, but no safe and effective RSV vaccine is yet available. Factors attributing to this problem are ...

Authors: Elizabeth C Moore, Jamie Barber and Ralph A Tripp

Molecular characterization of Umbre virus (Bunyaviridae)

Umbre (UMB) virus was first isolated from India in 1955 and classified as Orthobunyavirus (Turlock serogroup). Eight isolates of this virus, isolated from Culex mosquitoes were characterized on the basis of pa...

Authors: Pragya D Yadav, Akhilesh C Mishra and Devendra T Mourya

Inhibition of G1P3 expression found in the differential display study on respiratory syncytial virus infection

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading viral pathogen associated with bronchiolitis and lower respiratory tract disease in infants and young children worldwide. The respiratory epithelium is the prim...

Authors: Dongchi Zhao, Dan Peng, Lei Li, Qiwei Zhang and Chuyu Zhang

Molecular characterization of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza viruses isolated in Sweden in 2006

The analysis of the nonstructural (NS) gene of the highly pathogenic (HP) H5N1 avian influenza viruses (AIV) isolated in Sweden early 2006 indicated the co-circulation of two sub-lineages of these viruses at t...

Authors: István Kiss, Péter Gyarmati, Siamak Zohari, Karin Wilbe Ramsay, Giorgi Metreveli, Elisabeth Weiss, Maria Brytting, Marielle Stivers, Sofia Lindström, Ake Lundkvist, Kirill Nemirov, Peter Thorén, Mikael Berg, György Czifra and Sándor Belák

Torque teno virus: an improved indicator for viral pathogens in drinking waters

Currently applied indicator organism systems, such as coliforms, are not fully protective of public health from enteric viruses in water sources. Waterborne disease outbreaks have occurred in systems that test...

Authors: Jennifer S Griffin, Jeanine D Plummer and Sharon C Long

Molecular and macromolecular alterations of recombinant adenoviral vectors do not resolve changes in hepatic drug metabolism during infection

In this report we test the hypothesis that long-term virus-induced alterations in CYP occur from changes initiated by the virus that may not be related to the immune response. Enzyme activity, protein expressi...

Authors: Shellie M Callahan, Piyanuch Wonganan and Maria A Croyle

Hantaviruses and TNF-alpha act synergistically to induce ERK1/2 inactivation in Vero E6 cells

We have previously reported that the apathogenic Tula hantavirus induces apoptosis in Vero E6 epithelial cells. To assess the molecular mechanisms behind the induced apoptosis we studied the effects of hantavi...

Authors: Tomas Strandin, Jussi Hepojoki, Hao Wang, Antti Vaheri and Hilkka Lankinen

Neuraminidase activity provides a practical read-out for a high throughput influenza antiviral screening assay

The emergence of influenza strains that are resistant to commonly used antivirals has highlighted the need to develop new compounds that target viral gene products or host mechanisms that are essential for eff...

Authors: Maryna C Eichelberger, Arash Hassantoufighi, Meng Wu and Min Li

Discovery of frameshifting in Alphavirus 6K resolves a 20-year enigma

The genus Alphavirus includes several potentially lethal human viruses. Additionally, species such as Sindbis virus and Semliki Forest virus are important vectors for gene therapy, vaccination and cancer research...

Authors: Andrew E Firth, Betty YW Chung, Marina N Fleeton and John F Atkins

Iota-Carrageenan is a potent inhibitor of rhinovirus infection

Human rhinoviruses (HRVs) are the predominant cause of common cold. In addition, HRVs are implicated in the worsening of COPD and asthma, as well as the loss of lung transplants. Despite significant efforts, n...

Authors: Andreas Grassauer, Regina Weinmuellner, Christiane Meier, Alexander Pretsch, Eva Prieschl-Grassauer and Hermann Unger