Compared with other flaviviruses, Zika virus (ZIKV) is uniquely associated with congenital diseases in pregnant women. One recent study reported that (i) ZIKV has higher thermostability than dengue virus (DENV [a flavivirus closely related to ZIKV]), which might contribute to the disease outcome; (ii) the higher thermostability of ZIKV could arise from an extended loop structure in domain III o...

Rodent malaria species Plasmodium yoelii and P. chabaudi have been widely used to validate vaccine approaches targeting blood-stage merozoite antigens. However, increasing data suggest the P. berghei rodent malaria may be able to circumvent vaccine-induced anti-merozoite responses. Here we confirm a failure to protect against P. berghei, despite successful antibody induction against leading mer...

Dengue is the most prevalent mosquito-borne viral disease worldwide. Yet, there are no vaccines or specific antivirals available to prevent or treat the disease. Several dengue vaccines are currently in clinical or preclinical stages. The most advanced vaccine is the chimeric tetravalent CYD-TDV vaccine of Sanofi Pasteur. This vaccine has recently cleared Phase III, and efficacy results have be...

objective(s): brucella spp. are facultative intracellular pathogens which can stay alive and multiply in professional and nonprofessional phagocytes. immunity against brucella melitensis involves antigen-specific cd4+ and cd8+ t-cells activation and humoral immune responses. due to negative aspects of live attenuated vaccines, much attention has been focused on finding brucella-protective antig...

Background: Formation of secondary structure such as DNA hairpins or loops may influence molecular genetics methods and PCR based approaches necessary for genetic engineering, in addition to gene regulation. Materials and Methods: A polymerase chain reaction with splice overlap extension (SOE-PCR) was used to create fully synthetic 1F5 chimeric anti-CD20 heavy- and light-chain genes. The chi...

Hookworms infect more people than HIV and malaria combined, predominantly in third world countries. Treatment of infection with chemotherapy can have limited efficacy and re-infections after treatment are common. Heavy infection often leads to debilitating diseases. All these factors suggest an urgent need for development of vaccine. In an attempt to develop a vaccine targeting the major human ...

Human enterovirus 71 (EV71) and coxsackievirus A16 (CA16) are the major etiological agents of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) and are often associated with neurological complications. Currently, several vaccine types are being developed for EV71 and CA16. In this study, we constructed a bivalent chimeric virus-like particle (VLP) presenting the VP1 (aa208-222) and VP2 (aa141-155) epitopes o...

human cytomegalovirus is one of the most common pathogenic viruses all over the world. in congenital infection leads to neurologic severe disorders and even death of fetus and in individuals with immunosuppression may also cause severe clinical symptoms. multiple evidence indicate that among several strategies, epitope-based vaccine (evs) that can induce both humoral and cellular immunity respo...

A chimeric yellow fever (YF)-dengue serotype 2 (dengue 2) virus was constructed by replacing the premembrane and envelope genes of the YF 17D virus with those from dengue 2 virus strains of Southeast Asian genotype. The virus grew to high titers in Vero cells and, after passage 2, was used for immunogenicity and attenuation studies in rhesus monkeys. Subcutaneous immunization of naive rhesus mo...