MicrobiologyBytes

It was my priveledge to work with Brian Mahy many years ago. Brian has just retired as long-serving Editor of Virus Research, and his swansong is an excellent special issue on negative strand RNA viruses – an important read for all virologists and an even more impirtant one for all aspiring virologists.

Virus Research: Negative Strand RNA Viruses Special Issue

• Insights on influenza pathogenesis from the grave
• Taming influenza viruses
• Induction and evasion of type I interferon responses by influenza viruses
• Immune responses to influenza virus infection
• Novel vaccines against influenza viruses
• Prospects for controlling future pandemics of influenza
• New concepts in measles virus replication: Getting in and out in vivo and modulating the host cell environment
• Recombinant vaccines against the mononegaviruses—What we have learned from animal disease controls
• Biological feasibility of measles eradication
• Progress in understanding and controlling respiratory syncytial virus: Still crazy after all these years
• An unconventional pathway of mRNA cap formation by vesiculoviruses
• Rhabdovirus accessory genes
• Structural insights into the rhabdovirus transcription/replication complex
• Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome
• Progress in recombinant DNA-derived vaccines for Lassa virus and filoviruses
• Borna disease virus – Fact and fantasy
• A review of Nipah and Hendra viruses with an historical aside
• Negative-strand RNA viruses: The plant-infecting counterparts
• Quasispecies as a matter of fact: Viruses and beyond

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Since it was first recognized in 1998, Nipah virus (NiV) has caused several outbreaks in humans of encephalitic disease associated with high lethality. In the first outbreak, which was in Malaysia and Singapore, 265 humans became sick and some 40% of them died. Epidemiological links pointed to human contact with sick pigs in commercial piggeries, and the outbreak was brought under control through culling of approximately 1.1 million pigs. Since then, the virus has re-emerged in Bangladesh and neighboring India, starting in 2001, and between then and now, has caused several smaller but even deadlier disease outbreaks with case fatality rates ranging between 60 and 90%. Unlike the Malaysian outbreak, the route of transmission in these outbreaks was considered to be bat-to-human via food contaminated with bat saliva. In some cases, nosocomial transmissibility and person-to-person spread was also noted. An additional concern is that NiV is also potentially an agent of agro-terror since the rate of transmission of this virus in the pig population is close to 100%. Effective vaccine and therapies are needed to combat the threats posed by NiV.

2011 Vaccine Potential of Nipah Virus-Like Particles. 2011 PLoS ONE 6(4): e18437. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018437
Nipah virus (NiV) was first recognized in 1998 in a zoonotic disease outbreak associated with highly lethal febrile encephalitis in humans and a predominantly respiratory disease in pigs. Periodic deadly outbreaks, documentation of person-to-person transmission, and the potential of this virus as an agent of agroterror reinforce the need for effective means of therapy and prevention. In this report, we describe the vaccine potential of NiV virus-like particles (NiV VLPs) composed of three NiV proteins G, F and M. Co-expression of these proteins under optimized conditions resulted in quantifiable amounts of VLPs with many virus-like/vaccine desirable properties including some not previously described for VLPs of any paramyxovirus: The particles were fusogenic, inducing syncytia formation; PCR array analysis showed NiV VLP-induced activation of innate immune defense pathways; the surface structure of NiV VLPs imaged by cryoelectron microscopy was dense, ordered, and repetitive, and consistent with similarly derived structure of paramyxovirus measles virus. The VLPs were composed of all the three viral proteins as designed, and their intracellular processing also appeared similar to NiV virions. The size, morphology and surface composition of the VLPs were consistent with the parental virus, and importantly, they retained their antigenic potential. Finally, these particles, formulated without adjuvant, were able to induce neutralizing antibody response in Balb/c mice. These findings indicate vaccine potential of these particles and will be the basis for undertaking future protective efficacy studies in animal models of NiV disease.

Related:

• WHO launches new Hendra virus website

WHO Hendra virus website