Ticks transmit various human and animal microbial pathogens and may harbour more than one pathogen simultaneously. Both viruses and bacteria can trigger, and may subsequently suppress, vertebrate host and arthropod vector anti-microbial responses. Microbial coinfection of ticks could lead to an advantage or disadvantage for one or more of the microorganisms. In this preliminary study, cell line...

We constructed a single-chain anti-gp240 antibody (designated MEL sFv) and fused this to the recombinant toxin gelonin (rGel). MEL sFv-rGel was produced in bacterial expression plasmid (pET-32), and the protein composition was confirmed by both DNA sequencing and Western analysis. Inhibition of cell-free protein synthesis by the fusion construct demonstrated an IC(50) of 100 pM, comparable with...

Nonhuman primates host a plethora of potentially zoonotic microbes, with simian retroviruses receiving heightened attention due to their roles in the origins of human immunodeficiency viruses type 1 (HIV-1) and HIV-2. However, incomplete taxonomic and geographic sampling of potential hosts, especially the African colobines, has left the full range of primate retrovirus diversity unexplored. Blo...

Information on retroviruses infections in great apes is scarce, especially for apes kept in sanctuaries throughout Africa. To investigate the prevalence of retroviruses and possible transmission of different retroviruses originating from chimpanzees of different origin (Uganda, Congo and Rwanda), 38 wild-born captive orphan chimpanzees residing in a sanctuary on Ngamba Island were analyzed for ...

Ticks are vectors and reservoirs of many arboviruses pathogenic for humans or domestic animals; in addition, during bloodfeeding they can acquire and harbour pathogenic arboviruses normally transmitted by other arthropods such as mosquitoes. Tick cell and organ cultures provide convenient tools for propagation and study of arboviruses, both tick-borne and insect-borne, enabling elucidation of v...

Simian retroviruses are precursors of all human retroviral pathogens. However, little is known about the prevalence and coinfection rates or the genetic diversity of major retroviruses-simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), simian T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (STLV-1), and simian foamy virus (SFV)-in wild populations of nonhuman primates. Such information would contribute to the understanding...

An improved viral vector for cancer gene therapy should be capable of infecting tumors with high efficiency, inducing specific and high-level expression of transgene in the tumor and selectively destroying tumor cells. In the design of such a vector to treat hepatocellular carcinoma, we took advantage of (a) the high infectivity of adenoviruses for hepatic cells, (b) the high level of protein e...

Oncolytic viruses are a promising tool for treatment of cancer. We studied an oncolytic Semliki Forest virus (SFV) vector, VA7, carrying the enhanced green fluorescent protein gene (EGFP), as a novel virotherapy candidate against unresectable osteosarcoma. The efficiency and characteristics of the VA7EGFP treatment were compared with a widely studied oncolytic adenovirus, Ad5#24, both in vitro ...

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extracted from purified virions of Shope fibroma virus (SFV) (by using DNA from Microccocus lysodeikticus as marker) had a buoyant density of 1.6996 +/- 0.0003 g/ml), hence a guanine plus cytosine (G + C) content of 40.4 +/- 0.3%, which is close to the G + C content of the DNA of susceptible rabbit cells (40.9 +/- 0.4%) and different from that of vaccinia virus DNA (...

background: cd19 is a pan b cell marker that is recognized as an attractive target for antibody-based therapy of b-cell disorders including autoimmune disease and hematological malignancies. the object of this study was to stably express the human cd19 antigen in the murine nih-3t3 cell line aimed to be used as an immunogen in our future study. methods: total rna was extracted from raji cells i...