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- All Subjects: Microbiology
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Description
ABSTRACT In terms of prevalence, human suffering and costs dengue infections are the most important arthropod-borne viral disease worldwide. Dengue virus (DENV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus and the etiological agent of dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever. Thus, development of a safe and efficient vaccine constitutes an urgent necessity. Besides the traditional strategies aim at generating immunization options, the usage of viral vectors to deliver antigenic stimulus in order to elicit protection are particularly attractive for the endeavor of a dengue vaccine. The viral vector (MVvac2) is genetically equivalent to the currently used measles vaccine strain Moraten, which adds practicality to my approach. The goal of the present study was to generate a recombinant measles virus expressing structural antigens from two strains of DENV (DENV2 and DENV4) The recombinant vectors replication profile was comparable to that of the parental strain and expresses either membrane bound or soluble forms of DENV2 and DENV4 E glycoproteins. I discuss future experiments in order to demonstrate its immunogenicity in our measles-susceptible mouse model.
ContributorsAbdelgalel, Rowida (Author) / Reyes del Valle, Jorge (Thesis advisor) / Hogue, Brenda (Committee member) / Frasch, Wayne D (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Coronaviruses are a significant group of viruses that cause enteric and respiratory infections in a variety of animals, including humans. Outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in the past 15 years has increased research into coronaviruses to gain an understanding of their structure and function so one day therapies and vaccines may be produced. These viruses have four main structural proteins: the spike, nucleocapsid, envelope, and membrane proteins. The envelope (E) protein is an integral membrane protein in the viral envelope that acts as a viroporin for transport of cations and plays an important role in pathogenesis and viral assembly. E contains a hydrophobic transmembrane domain with polar residues that is conserved across coronavirus species and may be significant to its function. This experiment looks at the possible role of one polar residue in assembly, the 15th residue glutamine, in the Mouse Hepatitis Virus (MHV) E protein. The glutamine 15 residue was mutated into positively charged residues lysine or arginine. Plasmids with these mutations were co-expressed with the membrane protein (M) gene to produce virus-like particles (VLPs). VLPs are produced when E and M are co-expressed together and model assembly of the coronavirus envelope, but they are not infectious as they do not contain the viral genome. Observing their production with the mutated E protein gives insight into the role the glutamine residue plays in assembly. The experiment showed that a changing glutamine 15 to positive charges does not appear to significantly affect the assembly of the VLPs, indicating that this specific residue may not have a large impact on viral assembly.
ContributorsHaller, Sarah S. (Author) / Hogue, Brenda (Thesis director) / Liu, Wei (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Biodesign Institute (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Z-DNA binding protein 1 (ZBP1) is an interferon-inducible protein that plays a crucial role in antiviral defense by recognizing Z-form nucleic acid (Z-NA), a left-handed conformer of double-stranded DNA/RNA. When ZBP1 binds to Z-NA, it can trigger programmed cell death pathways, including apoptosis and necroptosis, in collaboration with receptor interacting protein kinases 1 and 3 (RIPK1 and RIPK3). Z-NA positive viruses including poxviruses and influenza A virus (IAV) activate ZBP1-dependent cell death during replication. Little is known whether ZBP1 plays any role during Z-NA negative virus infection. Doxycycline-inducible A549 ACE2 Tet-On cells were constructed to express ZBP1 and were infected with Z-NA negative viruses. ZBP1-expressing cells infected with Sindbis virus (SINV), La Crosse virus (LACV), Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and human coronavirus OC43 (hCoV-OC43) underwent extensive cell death, which could be rescued by a caspase inhibitor but not by JAK1/2 or RIPK1 kinase inhibitors. However, cell death was not observed upon Zika virus (ZIKV), Encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV), Chikungunya virus (CHKV) or human coronavirus 229E (hCoV-229E) infection. ZBP1 expression did not impact the replication of all tested viruses. In addition, ZBP1-mediated cell death during infection depends on the Zα2 and RHIM1 domains and partially on the C-terminal domain. These findings suggest that Z-NA can be detected by the Zα2 domain to initiate cell death pathways during infection with some Z-NA negative viruses and that the RHIM1/C-terminal domains are necessary for ZBP1-induced cell death. Further research is needed to determine the Z-NA ligand and the precise mechanism of ZBP1-mediated antiviral responses and how they can be exploited for the development of novel antiviral therapies.
ContributorsLa Rosa, Bruno Andres (Author) / Li, Yize (Thesis advisor) / Jacobs, Bertram (Committee member) / Hogue, Brenda (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023