Viral Immunology

Viral infections of the central nervous system are accompanied by the expression of cytokines and chemokines that can be critical for the control of viral replication in the brain. The outcomes of cytokine/chemokine signaling in neural cells vary widely, with cell-specific effects on cellular activity, proliferation, and survival. Neural stem/progenitor cells (NSPCs) are often altered during viral infections, through direct infection by the virus or by the influence of immune cell activity or cytokine/chemokine signaling...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Our work presents an epidemiological analysis of the dynamics and structure of the annual indicators such as Cumulative Incidence, Mortality Rate (MR), and Case Fatality Rate for infections preventable by vaccines (vaccine-preventable infections-VPIs) in Ukraine between 1944 and 2015 compared to the same indicators for infections not preventable by vaccines (nonvaccine-preventable infections-non-VPIs). In 1965, the proportion of all infectious diseases in the context of mortality (7.47%), and especially of VPI (3...

Hepatitis B is a clinically important public health issue. Infection leads to hepatocellular carcinoma. Therefore, patients need antiviral therapy for prolonged period to prevent the complication of the disease. Data concerning chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients with high hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA are limited. The aim of the study was to check the efficacy of the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (tenofovir) in terms of suppression of HBV DNA. The secondary end point in the study is to evaluate trends of predictive variables that predict outcome of treatment...

microRNAs have been reported to play crucial roles in various biological processes, including cell proliferation, apoptosis, tumor genesis, and viral infections. miR-26b has been found to be involved in the pathogenesis of multiple tumors, however, little is known about the role it plays in innate immune responses. In this study, we report that miR-26b is able to induce type-I interferon (IFN) expression, which was supported by both quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction and luciferase reporter assays...

Viral infection in the brain can be acute or chronic, with the responses often producing foci of increasingly cytotoxic inflammation. This can lead to effects beyond the central nervous system (CNS). To stimulate discussion, this commentary addresses four questions: What drives the development of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated neurocognitive disorders, does the phenotype of macrophages in the CNS spur development of HIV encephalitis (HIVE), does continual activation of astrocytes drive the development of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders/subclinical disease, and neuroinflammation: friend or foe? A unifying theory that connects each question is the issue of continued activation of glial cells, even in the apparent absence of simian immunodeficiency virus/HIV in the CNS...

Infection with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-1 continues to cause HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders despite combined antiretroviral therapy. Interferons (IFNs) are important for any antiviral immune response, but the lasting production of IFNα causes exhaustive activation leading eventually to progression to AIDS. Expression of IFNα in the HIV-exposed central nervous system has been linked to cognitive impairment and inflammatory neuropathology. In contrast, IFNβ exerts anti-inflammatory effects, appears to control, at least temporarily, lentiviral infection in the brain and provides neuroprotection...

Activated CD8+ lymphocytes infiltrate the brain in response to many viral infections; where some remain stationed long term as memory T cells. Brain-resident memory T cells (bTRM ) are positioned to impart immediate defense against recurrent or reactivated infection. The cytokine and chemokine milieu present within a tissue is critical for TRM generation and retention; and reciprocal interactions exist between brain-resident glia and bTRM . High concentrations of TGF-β are found within brain and this cytokine has been shown to induce CD103 (integrin αeβ7) expression...

West Nile virus (WNV) is a single-stranded RNA flavivirus and is a major cause of viral encephalitis worldwide. Experimental models of WNV infection in mice are commonly used to define acute neuroinflammatory responses in the brain. Alpha-synuclein (Asyn) is a protein of primarily neuronal origin and is a major cause of Parkinson's disease (PD), a disorder characterized by loss of dopaminergic neurons. Both WNV and PD pathologies are largely mediated by inflammation of the central nervous system (neuroinflammation) and have overlapping inflammatory pathways...

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection appears to trigger the onset of immune exhaustion and apoptosis to potentially assist viral persistence inside the host, eventually leading to exacerbated conditions of inflammation and hepatocarcinogenesis. Growing evidence suggests that spontaneous apoptosis of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) could be one of the potential immune impairment mechanisms in chronic viral infection. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a pleiotropic cytokine that plays an essential role in regulating immune and inflammatory responses...

Low pathogenic avian influenza virus (AIV) infection in chickens can result in economic losses and has impacts on human health. Poultry vaccination is a tool that can be used to decrease infection and transmission of AIVs. Prior research has demonstrated that Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands can act as vaccine adjuvants and their addition to inactivated AIV vaccines can enhance immune responses elicited in chickens. The objective of this study was to compare the adjuvant capabilities of TLR5 ligand (flagellin) and TLR21 ligand (CpG ODN 2007) administered either alone or in combination with an intramuscular formaldehyde inactivated H9N2 whole virus vaccine in chickens...

Nod-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3), absent in melanoma 2 (AIM2), and interferon gamma inducible protein 16 (IFI16) are innate immune sensors for intracellular microbes, which can be activated by various dangerous signals and subsequently lead to caspase-1 (CASP1) activation and the maturation cleavage of effector molecules pro-IL-1β and pro-IL-18. Their roles in immunopathology of acute and chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection are still unclear. In this study, we first investigated the activation of NLRP3, AIM2, and IFI16 inflammasomes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients infected with acute hepatitis B (AHB) and chronic hepatitis B (CHB) by quantitative real-time PCR and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay...

A variety of viruses can induce central nervous system (CNS) infections and neurological diseases, although the incidence is rare. Similar to peripheral infections, IFNα/β induction and signaling constitutes a first line of defense to limit virus dissemination. However, CNS-resident cells differ widely in their repertoire and magnitude of both basal and inducible components in the IFNα/β pathway. While microglia as resident myeloid cells have been implicated as prominent sentinels of CNS invading pathogens or insults, astrocytes are emerging as key responders to many neurotropic RNA virus infections...

This case study report describes a transmissible gastroenteritis coronavirus (TGEV) infection presented in a commercial pig herd. The clinical signs of infection appeared in newborn piglets, including medium morbidity and low mortality rates. Rectal swabs were collected from five different affected litters for laboratory examinations. Samples from two dead piglets and two euthanized affected piglets were collected for gross and histopathological examinations. All fecal samples were tested TGEV positive by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)...

Chemokines (chemotactic cytokines) are involved in a wide variety of biological processes. Following microbial infection, there is often robust chemokine signaling elicited from infected cells, which contributes to both innate and adaptive immune responses that control growth of the invading pathogen. Infection of the central nervous system (CNS) by the neuroadapted John Howard Mueller (JHM) strain of mouse hepatitis virus (JHMV) provides an excellent example of how chemokines aid in host defense as well as contribute to disease...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

There is a growing body of studies that show the important role of NS3 protein from hepatitis C virus in fibrosis. However, mechanisms of the effects of this protein on immune modulation of stellate cells remain to be investigated. Herein, the effect of NS3 protein on the expression level of suppressor of cytokine signaling (SOCS)1/3 and interleukin-24 (IL-24)-related genes was investigated in hepatic stellate cell (HSC), LX-2. Recombinant NS3 protein was added to LX-2 HSC culture. Leptin and standard medium treatments were also included in experiments as positive and negative controls, respectively...

Acute hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is usually asymptomatic, therefore, early diagnosis is rare. It may remain undiagnosed in individuals who progress to chronic infection, often until serious liver damage has developed. To incorporate the diagnosis of this viral disease in a multiple-diagnostic assay, we first analyzed by immunoinformatics the HCV subtype 1a polyprotein (specifically Core, E2, NS3, NS5A proteins) to select antigenic peptides to be tested initially by the Pepscan technique. Next, we performed the immunodiagnosis of HCV infection, using the Multiple Antigen Blot Assay (MABA)...

Immunoglobulin (Ig) G4-related disease (IgG4-RD) is a newly recognized systemic fibroinflammatory disease with characteristic histological findings and high serum IgG4 levels. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a persistent herpesvirus in B lymphocytes, and we previously reported EBV reactivation-induced Ig production. We showed that EBV reactivation induced the production of thyrotropin receptor antibodies, the causative antibodies of Graves' disease. In the present study, we investigated whether EBV reactivation induced IgG4 production and if EBV-positive B cells or IgG4-positive plasma cells are present in the thyroid tissues of Graves' disease patients with lymphoplasmacytic infiltration...

Accumulating evidence demonstrates that CD8+ CD28- regulatory T cells increase in chronic viral infection as well as tumorigenesis. However, it is still not clear about their characteristics in hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. In addition, it is not understood whether this regulatory immune subset is distinct from CD4+ CD25high regulatory T cells in the aspect of impact on or relationship to the progression of HBV infection. Hence, we investigated their dynamics and compared their correlations with clinical parameters in the chronic and advanced phases of HBV infection...