Norovirus evasion of the immune system
Noroviruses are the most common cause of food-borne gastroenteritis worldwide, and explosive outbreaks frequently occur in community settings, where the virus can immobilize large numbers of infected individuals for 24–48 hours, making the development of effective vaccines and antiviral therapies a priority. There are currently no vaccines or antiviral treatments available to treat or prevent the >260 million gastroenteritis cases reported globally each year. Noroviruses have proven difficult to work with in the laboratory owing to the lack of cell culture systems and animal models, and therefore little is known about the pathogenesis caused by this virus, which has hampered the development of efficacious therapeutics.
Several challenges have hampered therapeutic design, including: the limitations of cell culture and small-animal model systems; the complex effects of host pre-exposure histories; differential host susceptibility, which is correlated with blood group and secretor status; and the evolution of novel immune escape variants. This review discusses the molecular and structural mechanisms that facilitate the persistence of noroviruses in human populations.
Related:
- MicrobiologyBytes: Noroviruses
- How Noroviruses cause repeated outbreaks of gastroenteritis
- Tobacco plants make norovirus vaccine
Tags: Biology, disease, Health, Immunology, Medicine, Microbiology, norovirus, Science, Vaccines, Virology, virus
