Published in Virology
Herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) is the leading cause of genital herpes and increases the risk of HIV infection, but there is no effective vaccine. A replication-defective HSV-2 mutant virus, dl5-29, is effective in animal models and has been in a phase I trial. Previous studies have shown that dl5-29 gives higher antibody responses and better protec...
Published in Virology
AAV-mediated gene therapy has become a promising therapeutic strategy for chronic diseases. Its clinical utilization, however, is limited by the potential risk of off-target effects. In this work we attempt to overcome this challenge, hypothesizing that cardiac ion channel-specific ligands could be fused onto the AAV capsid, and narrow its tropism ...
Published in Virology
Sf-rhabdovirus was only recently identified as an adventitious agent of Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf) cell lines used as hosts for baculovirus vectors. As such, we still know little about its genetic variation, infectivity, and the potential impact of variation on the Sf-rhabdovirus-host interaction. Here, we characterized Sf-rhabdoviruses from two wi...
Published in Virology
Vaccinia virus (VACV), a member of the Poxviridae family, uses cytoplasmic factories for its replication. Recent studies indicated that VACV infection requires a set of nucleoporins. However, how the nucleoporins contribute to viral life cycle remains unclear. Here, we report that the nucleoporins Nup62 and Nup358 localize to the cytoplasmic viral ...
Published in Virology
Cellular transformation by adenovirus E1A requires targeting TRRAP, a scaffold protein which helps assemble histone acetyltransferase complexes, including the NuA4 complex. We recently reported that E1A and E1A 1-80 (N-terminal 80 aa) promote association of the proto-oncogene product MYC with the NuA4 complex. The E1A N-terminal TRRAP-targeting (ET...
Published in Virology
RSV is a major cause of severe lower respiratory infection in infants and young children. With no vaccine yet available, it is important to clarify mechanisms of disease pathogenesis. Since indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) is an immunomodulatory enzyme and is upregulated with RSV infection, we studied it in vivo during infection of BALB/c mice and...
Published in Virology
Lassa virus (LASV) causes severe hemorrhagic fever with high mortality, yet no vaccine currently exists. Antibodies targeting viral attachment proteins are crucial for protection against many viral infections. However, the envelope glycoprotein (GP)-1 of LASV elicits weak antibody responses due to extensive glycan shielding. Here, we explored a nov...
Published in Virology
The HIV-1 RNA genome contains complex structures with many structural elements playing regulatory roles during viral replication. A recent study has identified multiple RNA structures with unknown functions that are conserved among HIV-1 and two simian immunodeficiency viruses. To explore the roles of these conserved RNA structures, we introduced s...
Published in Virology
MERS-CoV is the only lethal human CoV still endemic in the Arabian Peninsula and neither vaccine nor therapeutics against MERS-CoV infection is available. The nsp1 of CoV is thought to be a major virulence factor because it suppresses protein synthesis through the degradation of host mRNA. In contrast, viral RNA circumvents the nsp1-mediated transl...
Published in Virology
Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), a main source of type I interferon in response to viral infection, are an early cell target during lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection, which has been associated with the LCMV's ability to establish chronic infections. Human blood-derived pDCs have been reported to be refractory to ex vivo LCMV i...
