Cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis is an important ocular complication in human immunodeficiency virus-infected individuals and the leading cause of blindness in those not undergoing highly active antiretroviral therapy. Murine CMV (MCMV) infection of mice has been shown to be a useful small-animal model for the study of CMV pathogenesis in the eye. The purpose of this study was to evaluate CMV pe...

Four methods for the assay of human interferon in Vero cells were compared based on the inhibition of viral cytopathic effect (CPE) in tubes, the inhibition of CPE in microplates, the reduction of plaques, and the inhibition of quantitative hemadsorption. For inhibition of CPE, Sindbis virus, vesicular stomatitis virus, poliovirus type 2, and vaccinia virus were used for challenge. In the plaqu...

BACKGROUND Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a lethal immune-mediated disease caused by feline coronavirus (FCoV). Currently, no therapy with proven efficacy is available. In searching for agents that may prove clinically effective against FCoV infection, five analogous overlapping peptides were designed and synthesized based on the putative heptad repeat 2 (HR2) sequence of the spike prot...

West Nile (WN) virus was introduced into the United States in 1999, when the first human cases of WN fever and encephalitis appeared in New York City. From there, the virus has spread throughout North America, in some areas cocirculating with the related flavivirus St. Louis encephalitis (SLE) virus. Public health laboratories currently use an immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibody capture enzyme-link...

The immunogenicity and safety of three novel host-range vaccines containing deletions in the transmembrane domain of dengue virus serotype 2 (DV2) E glycoprotein were evaluated in African green monkeys. The shorter transmembrane domains are capable of functionally spanning an insect but not a mammalian cell membrane, resulting in production of viral mutants that have reduced infectivity in mamm...

OBJECTIVES The emergence of oseltamivir-resistant viruses raised the global threat with regard to influenza virus infection. To develop alternative antiviral agents against influenza virus infection is significant and urgent. METHODS A neutralization test was applied as a screening assay and a plaque reduction assay was used for confirmation. Expression plasmids for viral ribonucleoproteins (...

sions of new or recrudescent acute synovitis. RF-PFC were observed to disappear from the peripheral circulation and the bone marrow during therapy with cytotoxic drugs. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that the appearance of RF-PFC in the peripheral blood represents an anamnestic response to transiently appearing antigen. The nature of the antigen is not specified. The bone marrow ma...

The recently discovered (1976) Ebola virus is responsible for one type of human hemorrhagic fever on the African continent (10). The virus is highly pathogenic, and no vaccine is available; therefore, it is classified as a class 4 viral agent (2). We initiated a program to investigate the ecology, biology, immunology, and chemistry of this virus and its relatives, and have recently reported on ...

Neutralizing antibodies induced by vaccination or natural infection play a critically important role in protection against the viral diseases. In general, neutralization of the viral infection occurs via two major pathways: pre- and post-attachment modes, the first being the most important for such infections as influenza and polio, the latter being significant for filoviruses. Neutralizing cap...

Effects of the commercial drug zanamivir (Relenza) covalently attached to poly-l-glutamine on the infectivity of influenza A viruses are examined using the plaque reduction assay and binding affinity to viral neuraminidase (NA). These multivalent drug conjugates exhibit (i) up to a 20,000-fold improvement in anti-influenza potency compared with the zanamivir parent against human and avian viral...