Cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) were inoculated with differing doses of West Nile virus (WNV) to evaluate their potential role as reservoir hosts in nature. Swallows often nest in large colonies in habitats and months associated with high mosquito abundance and early WNV transmission in North America. Additionally, cliff swallow diet consists of insects, including mosquitoes, leading ...

A molecular diagnostic method for robust detection of Ebola virus (EBOV) at the point of care (POC) directly from blood samples is described. This assay is based on reverse transcriptase loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) of the glycoprotein gene of EBOV. Complete reaction formulations were lyophilized in 0.2-mL polymerase chain reaction tubes. RT-LAMP reactions were performed on ...

Outbreaks of Mayaro fever have been associated with a sylvatic cycle of Mayaro virus (MAYV) transmission in South America. To evaluate the potential for a common urban mosquito to transmit MAYV, laboratory vector competence studies were performed with Aedes aegypti from Iquitos, Peru. Oral infection in Ae. aegypti ranged from 0% (0/31) to 84% (31/37), with blood meal virus titers between 3.4 lo...

The potency of the U.S. Reference Smallpox Vaccine, Lot 2, the International Reference Preparation of Smallpox Vaccine, and commercial smallpox vaccines was determined by the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) and rabbit scarification (RS) potency assay methods. The mean titer of the U.S. Reference (based on 107 ampoules) was 10(8.1) pock-forming units (PFU) per ml and that of the International Ref...

Transmission experiments are a critical component of vector competence studies. In this study, a real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to enumerate the amount of West Nile virus (WNV) secreted in mosquito saliva following oral infection. Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus were allowed to feed on WNV-infected blood, and saliva was collected on days 14 and 21 pos...

The development of resistance of outbred white mice to two plaque size variants of Sindbis virus was studied as a function of host age. A sudden drop in mortality occurred over a 3-day period. As little as 1 plaque-forming unit (PFU) per mouse was lethal in 1-day-old animals, whereas inocula of 10(9) PFU per mouse failed to produce high mortality in weanlings. A comparison of viral growth kinet...

Simian Hemorrhagic Fever Virus (SHFV) has caused sporadic outbreaks of hemorrhagic fevers in macaques at primate research facilities. SHFV is a BSL-2 pathogen that has not been linked to human disease; as such, investigation of SHFV pathogenesis in non-human primates (NHPs) could serve as a model for hemorrhagic fever viruses such as Ebola, Marburg, and Lassa viruses. Here we describe the patho...

We demonstrate that surface-induced dissociation (SID) coupled with ion mobility mass spectrometry (IM-MS) is a powerful tool for determining the stoichiometry of a multi-subunit ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex assembled in a solution containing Mg(2+). We investigated Pyrococcus furiosus (Pfu) RNase P, an archaeal RNP that catalyzes tRNA 5' maturation. Previous step-wise, Mg(2+)-dependent reco...

We have previously shown that replication of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is highly sensitive to alpha/beta interferon (IFN-alpha/beta). In the present study, we constructed recombinant, replication-defective human adenovirus type 5 vectors containing either porcine IFN-alpha or IFN-beta (Ad5-pIFNalpha or Ad5-pIFNbeta). We demonstrated that cells infected with these viruses express high ...