Electronic Library of Scientific Literature - © Academic Electronic Press
Volume 45 / February 2001 / number 1
C.D. PODURI, A. KHANNA, S.J. KHUNDMIRI, M.N. KHAJA, K.S. KUMAR, V.S. SUGUNAN, C.M. HABIBULLAH, M.R. DAS
Rajiv Gandhi Center for Biotechnology, Jagathy,
Trivandrum 695 014, Kerala, India;
Center for Liver Diseases, Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
Summary. – The antibody profile to various proteins of hepatitis C virus (HCV) was studied in 113 patients positive for HCV RNA in various disease statuses of hepatitis C (HC). A single peptide (E2/NS1, aa 413–436 of HCV polyprotein) chosen from a conserved region at the C-terminus of the hypervariable region (HVR) HVR1 of HCV was found to be sufficient for reliable diagnosis of the infection, even in the acute phase. Six hundred and one suspected HC cases and 200 voluntary blood donors were tested by this peptide. The sensitivity of detection of HCV antibodies by this peptide did not increase with addition of peptides from other HCV proteins. Our results clearly demonstrate that antibodies to HCV envelope proteins occur in a higher percentage of the infected population than those to other proteins. This emphasizes the necessity of using representative sequences from HCV envelope proteins in diagnostic immunoassays of this viral infection.
Key words: hepatitis
C virus; epitope masking; envelope proteins; predominant antibodies;
multi-peptide analysis
Acta virologica 45: 1 – 6, 2001
P. HUSA, P. CHALUPA, H. ŠTROBLOVÁ, L. HUSOVÁ, P. ŠLESINGER, J. ZAJÍC
Department of Infectious Diseases, University
Hospital, Jihlavská 20, 639 00 Brno, Czech Republic;
Department of Microbiology and
Department of Medical Gastroenterology, University Hospital, Brno, Czech
Republic
Summary. – The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of autoantibodies to asialoglycoprotein receptor (ASGPR, anti-ASGPR) in chronic hepatitis C patients and to characterize the anti-ASGPR-positive and anti-ASGPR-negative patients in more detail. A total of 79 chronic hepatitis C patients were screened for the presence anti-ASGPR by ELISA. Anti-ASGPR were detected in 11 (13.9%) patients. No significant differences were found between the anti-ASGPR-positive and anti-ASGPR-negative patients in age, alanine transaminase (ALT) activity, histological findings and response and tolerance to alpha-interferon (alpha-IFN) therapy. The male predominance in the anti-ASGPR positive group was statistically significant. It was surprising that other tested autoantibodies (antinuclear autoantibodies [ANA], smooth muscle autoantibodies [SMA], type 1 liver-kidney microsome autoantibodies [LKM-1], anti-thyroglobulin and thyroid microsome autoantibodies) and increased levels of immunoglobulins A, G and/or M were observed significantly more frequently in the anti-ASGPR-negative group.
Key words: asialoglycoprotein
receptor (ASGPR); autoantibodies to ASGPR; chronic hepatitis C;
alpha-interferon
Acta virologica 45: 7 – 11, 2001
B. NAYAK, B. PATTNAIK, C. TOSH, A. SANYAL, D. HEMADRI, S.S. PATIL, R. VENKATARAMANAN
Central Laboratory, All India Coordinated Research
Project for Epidemiological Studies on Foot-and-Mouth Disease,
Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Mukteswar-Kumaon, Nainital 263
138, India
Summary. – Twenty-three foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) type A field isolates, recovered from different outbreaks during 1987–1996 in India, were subjected to antigenic and genetic analysis. The isolates showed a close antigenic relationship to the current vaccine strain (IND 17/77) in micro-neutralization test conducted using a vaccine strain (IND 17/77) antiserum and a peptide (aa 136–151 of VP1 protein of the A22/Azerbaijan/65 strain) antiserum. However, the isolates revealed minor antigenic differences in their reactivity with three neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) recognizing trypsin-sensitive conformation-independent epitopes of the vaccine virus strains. Phylogenetic relationship between the isolates was carried out employing a part of the 1D gene (168 nucleotides at the 3´-end). Additional seven type A Indian field isolates reported earlier were included in the analysis. The percent similarity among the Indian isolates varied from 82.7% to 99.4% at nucleotide level, and from 83.9% to 100% at amino acid level. These observations clearly demonstrate genetic heterogeneity of the field isolates. The current vaccine strain IND 17/77 showed divergence of 9.7% at nucleotide level and 5.6% at amino acid level from the A22 Iraq 24/64 isolate. The field strains were divergent from the vaccine strain IND 17/77 by 5.6%–14.6% and 3.7%–13.7 % at nucleotide and amino acid level, respectively. In the phylogenetic tree, the isolates were distributed into 21 genetic groups. The clustering pattern of the isolates in the phylogenetic tree revealed no specific distribution pattern of the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks in relation to their geographical locations, caused by unrestricted animal movement and endemic nature of the disease.
Key words:
foot-and-mouth disease; virus; type A; isolates; monoclonal antibodies;
1D gene; phylogenetic analysis
Acta virologica 45: 13 – 21, 2001
V. KADEN, U. SCHURIG, H. STEYER
Bundesforschungsanstalt für Viruskrankheiten der Tiere, Institut für Infektionsmedizin der Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute Insel Riems, Boddenblick 5a, D-17498 Insel Riems, Germany
Summary. – The efficacy of simultaneous vaccination of pigs against classical swine fever (CSF) and challenge was evaluated. In this study, domestic weanling pigs were vaccinated orally with a conventional live virus vaccine based on CSF virus (CSFV) C strain and were challenged simultaneously with CSFV of different virulence. All the animals vaccinated and challenged with a high dose of highly virulent Koslov strain died while three of five animals challenged with a low dose of highly virulent Alfort 187 strain survived, shed the virus in nasal secretions, developed antibodies, and four of them showed a transient viremia. All the animals vaccinated and challenged with the low virulent field isolate MV 140/Riems survived, showed a short viremia and developed antibodies. No CSFV or CSFV RNA could be detected in the animals surviving the infection. This study demonstrates that oral vaccination of wild boars in an infected area bears no risk for the development of a persistent CSF infection.
Key words: classical
swine fever; oral vaccination; challenge; virus transmission; viremia
Acta virologica 45: 23 – 29, 2001
A. AKIN, T.L. LIN, C.C. WU, T.A. BRYAN, T. HOOPER, D. SCHRADER
Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1175, USA
Summary. – Antibodies to infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) cross-react with turkey coronavirus (TCV) in immunofluorescence assay (IFA) indicating that IBV and TCV may share an amino acid sequence similarity. To determine its extent, the gene encoding the nucleocapsid (N) protein of TCV was amplified by reverse transcription–PCR (RT-PCR) from RNA purified from intestines of embryos of turkeys infected with various TCV isolates and from allantoic fluid of chicken embryos infected with IBV M41 strain, the obtained N genes were cloned, sequenced and compared with known sequences of N genes of five IBV strains. The primers for amplification were designed from the genome of IBV. PCR products were obtained only from two of eight TCV isolates tested. It was found that the two TCV isolates were identical with five IBV strains by 90.1–94.1% at the N gene level. It was also observed that the N gene of eight TCV isolates originating from various regions of the USA could not be amplified by the primers designed from the N gene of bovine coronavirus (BCV).
Key words: turkey
coronavirus; infectious bronchitis virus; nucleocapsid protein gene,
genomic similarity
Acta virologica 45: 31 – 38, 2001
S. BANIČ, S. KOREN, J. TOMAŽIČ, L. VIDMAR, A. IHAN, M. POLJAK, A. AVŠIČ-ŽUPANC
Institute of Microbiology and Immunology, Medical
Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Zaloška 4, Ljubljana, Slovenia;
Department of Infectious Diseases and Febrile Illnesses, University
Medical Center, Ljubljana
Summary. – In 13 human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) infected patients receiving a highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) annual influenza vaccination was conducted. It was hoped that HAART would prevent a post-vaccination increase in HIV-1 load and potential adverse effects. Only two patients had an increased viral load on day 14 post vaccination (p.v.). At 6 months p.v., the majority of the patients had a significantly increased CD4 cell count and a significantly decreased viral load. This indicates that HAART can protect patients from adverse consequences of influenza vaccination. The production of antibodies to the influenza A and B viruses in the HIV-infected patients was substantially lower than that in healthy persons. We propose that HIV-positive patients receiving HAART should be subjected to annual influenza vaccination
Key words: influenza
vaccination; AIDS patients; antiretroviral therapy
Acta virologica 45: 39 – 44, 2001
X.P. ZHOU, Y. XIE, Z.K. ZHANG, Y.J. QI, J.J. WU
Institute of Biotechnology, Zhejiang University,
Hangzhou 310029, P.R. China;
Yunnan Biotechnology Research Institute, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural
Sciences, Kunming, P.R. China
Summary. – Defective DNA of tobacco leaf curl virus (TLCV) was identified in TLCV-infected tobacco plants. The defective DNA was cloned and sequenced. The sequence showed it was about half the size of the TLCV DNA-A, and was derived from TLCV DNA-A by a large deletion. The defective DNA contained the intergenic region and part of the AC1 (Rep) gene of TLCV, and also novel open reading frames (ORFs). The immunotrapping tests showed the defective DNA was associated with geminate particles, suggesting it could be encapsidated in virus particles. It was transmitted, along with full-length DNA-A, to tobacco plants by grafting and whitefly (Bemisia tabaci).
Key words: tobacco
leaf curl virus; defective DNA; deletion; encapsidation; transmission
Acta virologica 45: 45 – 50, 2001
T. SEKIZAWA, K. YANAGI, Y. ITOYAMA
Department of Neurology, Tohoku University School
of Medicine, Sendai, Japan;
First Department of Virology, National Institute of Infectious Diseases,
Tokyo, Japan;
Yamagata College of Health Science, Yamagata, Japan
Summary. – We examined the effect of glycyrrhizin (GR), a component of licorice root extract, on herpetic encephalitis that was inflicted on mice by inoculation of herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) onto their cornea. Intraperitoneal (i.p.) administration of GR to mice suffering from herpetic encephalitis increased their survival rate in average about 2.5 times (from 37.5–29.0% to 81.8–83.3%; mean values from 2 experiments) while it reduced HSV-1 replication in the brain to 45.6% of the control. These results demonstrate a stimulative effect of GR on the mouse defense system(s) against HSV-1 infection.
Key words: encephalitis;
glycyrrhizin; herpes simplex virus 1; mouse
Acta virologica 45: 51 – 54, 2001
N. ČEŘOVSKÁ, T. MORAVEC, M. FILIGAROVÁ, K. PETRZIK
Institute of Experimental Botany, Academy of
Sciences of Czech Republic, Na Karlovce 1, 160 00 Prague 6, Czech
Republic;
Institute of Plant Molecular Biology, Academy of Sciences of Czech
Republic, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
Summary. – Sequences of the first 300 nucleotides of coat protein (CP) genes of 7 isolates of NTN strain of potato virus Y (PVY, PVYNTN) were determined and compared with analogous published sequences of various isolates and strains of PVY. The sequence identity among the sequenced isolates ranged from 96 to 100%. The differences were found at different positions. The nucleotide sequence of this part of CP gene seems to be very conservative among the isolates tested that means that PVYNTN is the evolutionary youngest among all PVY strains.
Key words: potato
virus Y; NTN strain; coat protein; nucleotide sequences
Acta virologica 45: 55 – 59, 2001
K. PETRZIK, I. MRÁZ, D. KUBELKOVÁ
Department of Plant Virology, Institute of Plant
Molecular Biology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic,
Branišovská 31, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic
Summary. – The coat protein (CP) gene of Prunus necrotic ringspot virus (PNRSV) was cloned into pET16b vector and expressed in Escherichia coli. CP-enriched fractions were prepared from whole cell lysate by differential centrifugation. The fraction sedimenting at 20,000 x g for 30 mins was used for preparation of a rabbit antiserum to CP. This antiserum had a titer of 1:2048 and reacted in a double-antibody sandwich ELISA (DAS-ELISA).
Key words: Escherichia
coli; Prunus necrotic ringspot virus; recombinant coat protein
Acta virologica 45: 61 – 63, 2001
S.J. GERMANO, J.T. MAY
Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Science,
Technology and Engineering, LaTrobe University,
Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia
Acta virologica 45: 65 – 66, 2001
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