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Viruses
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New World Encephalitic Alphaviruses
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New World Encephalitic Alphaviruses

A special issue of Viruses (ISSN 1999-4915). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Viruses".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2022) | Viewed by 2167

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Farooq Nasar

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Guest Editor
Viral Disease Branch, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 503 Robert Grant Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA
Henry M Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, 6720A Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, MD 20817, USA
Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of Texas Medical Branch, 301 University Boulevard, Galveston, Texas 77555, USA
Interests: virus evolution; animal models; vaccines; virus discovery; diagnostics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

New World alphaviruses (Eastern, Western, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus) are significant pathogens of veterinary and medical importance in the Americas. These viruses have caused sporadic outbreaks and large epidemics of fatal encephalitis in humans and domesticated animals for more than a century. Due to their ability to cause lethal disease, these viruses have also been identified as potential biothreat agents. Currently, there are no countermeasures to treat or prevent human disease and the public remains vulnerable to natural outbreaks and bioterror event(s).

This Special Issue seeks research studies and reviews on broad topics including animal model development, vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, virus evolution, epidemiology, virus emergence, and virulence. The review papers should explore the current state of the field, recent advances, as well as gaps in knowledge.

Dr. Farooq Nasar
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Viruses is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • emergence
  • vaccines
  • therapeutics
  • virulence
  • transmission
  • animal models
  • diagnostics

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 2288 KiB  
Article
In Vitro and In Vivo Phenotypes of Venezuelan, Eastern and Western Equine Encephalitis Viruses Derived from cDNA Clones of Human Isolates
by Christina L. Gardner, Chengqun Sun, Matthew D. Dunn, Theron C. Gilliland, Jr., Derek W. Trobaugh, Yutaka Terada, Douglas S. Reed, Amy L. Hartman and William B. Klimstra
Viruses 2023, 15(1), 5; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/v15010005 - 20 Dec 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1559
Abstract
The Department of Defense recently began an effort to improve and standardize virus challenge materials and efficacy determination strategies for testing therapeutics and vaccines. This includes stabilization of virus genome sequences in cDNA form where appropriate, use of human-derived virus isolates, and noninvasive [...] Read more.
The Department of Defense recently began an effort to improve and standardize virus challenge materials and efficacy determination strategies for testing therapeutics and vaccines. This includes stabilization of virus genome sequences in cDNA form where appropriate, use of human-derived virus isolates, and noninvasive strategies for determination of challenge virus replication. Eventually, it is desired that these approaches will satisfy the FDA “Animal Rule” for licensure, which substitutes animal efficacy data when human data are unlikely to be available. To this end, we created and examined the virulence phenotype of cDNA clones of prototypic human infection-derived strains of the alphaviruses, Venezuelan (VEEV INH9813), eastern (EEEV V105) and western (WEEV Fleming) equine encephalitis viruses, and created fluorescent and luminescent reporter expression vectors for evaluation of replication characteristics in vitro and in vivo. Sequences of minimally passaged isolates of each virus were used to synthesize full-length cDNA clones along with a T7 transcription promoter-based bacterial propagation vector. Viruses generated from the cDNA clones were compared with other “wild type” strains derived from cDNA clones and GenBank sequences to identify and eliminate putative tissue culture artifacts accumulated in the cell passaged biological stocks. This was followed by examination of aerosol and subcutaneous infection and disease in mouse models. A mutation that increased heparan sulfate binding was identified in the VEEV INH9813 biological isolate sequence and eliminated from the cDNA clone. Viruses derived from the new human isolate cDNA clones showed similar mouse virulence to existing clone-derived viruses after aerosol or subcutaneous inoculation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New World Encephalitic Alphaviruses)
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