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Topic Review
Vitamin C Intervention for Critical COVID-19
Coronaviruses are single-stranded ribonucleic acid viruses comprising a lipid bilayer containing crown-like spikes (Latin, Corona = Crown) on their outer surface.
  • 414
  • 18 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Visna Virus
Visna virus (also known as visna-maedi virus, maedi-visna virus and ovine lentivirus) from the genus Lentivirus and subfamily Orthoretrovirinae, is a "prototype" retrovirus that causes encephalitis and chronic pneumonitis in sheep. It is known as visna when found in the brain, and maedi when infecting the lungs. Lifelong, persistent infections in sheep occur in the lungs, lymph nodes, spleen, joints, central nervous system, and mammary glands; The condition is sometimes known as "ovine progressive pneumonia" (OPP), particularly in the United States , or "Montana sheep disease". White blood cells of the monocyte/macrophage lineage are the main target of visna virus.
  • 438
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Virus-Induced Oncogenesis
Tumorigenesis due to viral infection accounts for a high fraction of the total global cancer burden (15–20%) of all human cancers. One of the main mechanisms by which viruses induce host cell proliferation programs is through controlling the host’s epigenetic machinery. Oncogenic viruses establish a permanent latent infection sustained by the production of specific viral proteins, which interact with the cell environment, including the host epigenetic machinery to specifically deregulate pathways to their advantage such as cell metabolism, resistance to apoptosis, cell proliferation and innate immune response signaling. Epigenetic modifications largely alter host gene expression and can provide a common mechanism of virus-induced transformation.
  • 716
  • 18 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Virus-Encoded Complement Regulators
Viruses require a host for replication and survival and hence are subjected to host immunological pressures. The complement system, a crucial first response of the host immune system, is effective in targeting viruses and virus-infected cells, and boosting the antiviral innate and acquired immune responses. Thus, the system imposes a strong selection pressure on viruses. Consequently, viruses have evolved multiple countermeasures against host complement. A major mechanism employed by viruses to subvert the complement system is encoding proteins that target complement. Since viruses have limited genome size, most of these proteins are multifunctional in nature.
  • 806
  • 03 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Virus-Based Immuno-Oncology Models
Oncolytic virus (OV) presents a natural or genetically engineered tropism for tumor cells that can be further enhanced to increase both innate and adaptive immune responses. Viruses and other pathogens naturally stimulate stronger immune responses than over-expressed self-antigens normally encountered in solid tumors. 
  • 279
  • 28 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Virus Processing
The main idea behind viral processing is to stop the viruses in a given sample from contaminating the desired product. The two most widely used methods of viral processing are viral removal and viral inactivation. The former is a method in which all viruses are simply removed from the sample completely. The latter method is one in which the viruses may remain in the final product, but in a non-infective form. These techniques are used widely in the food and blood plasma industries, as those products can be harmed by the presence of viral particles. Some of the more common viruses removed by these methods are the HIV-1 and HIV-2 viruses; hepatitis A, B, and C; and parvoviruses. The methods used in the plasma industry have been summarized (Horowitz B., Minor P., Morgenthaler J. J., Burnouf T., McIntosh R., Padilla A., Thorpe R. and van Aken W. G. Who Expert Committee on Biological Standardization. World Health Organ Tech Rep Ser. 924: 1-232, 2004.) In some cases, however, it is the virus itself that is the desired product, as is often the case with the HIV. In many cases, researchers may be trying to extract the viruses from the blood for study, not specifically for blood purification. It is also common to use these types of techniques to remove particles produced as a result of viral infection.
  • 444
  • 17 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Virus Infection and Systemic Inflammation: COVID-19 and Beyond
Respiratory infections with newly emerging zoonotic viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, the etiological agent of COVID-19, often lead to the perturbation of the human innate and adaptive immune responses causing severe disease with high mortality. The responsible mechanisms are commonly virus-specific and often include either over-activated or delayed local interferon responses, which facilitate efficient viral replication in the primary target organ, systemic viral spread, and rapid onset of organ-specific and harmful inflammatory responses. Despite the distinct replication strategies, human infections with SARS-CoV-2 and highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses demonstrate remarkable similarities and differences regarding the mechanisms of immune induction, disease dynamics, as well as the long-term sequelae.
  • 444
  • 05 Aug 2022
Topic Review
Virus Host Interaction and Uncoating
Influenza is a zoonotic respiratory disease of major public health interest due to its pandemic potential, and a threat to animals and the human population. The influenza A virus genome consists of eight single-stranded RNA segments sequestered within a protein capsid and a lipid bilayer envelope. During host cell entry, cellular cues contribute to viral conformational changes that promote critical events such as fusion with late endosomes, capsid uncoating and viral genome release into the cytosol. 
  • 620
  • 03 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Virus Genetic Diversity
Virosaurus database offers curated virus sequences, available at various degree of clustering. Clustering virus sequences with different similarity scores gives an indication of the genetic diversity of a each virus, and how deep it is. For example HIV-1 and Influenza sequences present high numbers of clusters when clustered at 98% similarity. At 90% similarity, the number of  influenza virus clusters dramatically drops by a factor of about 20, when for HIV-1it drops by a factor of 2. This suggest that the diversity of HIV-1 sequence is somehow deeper that the one for influenza.
  • 719
  • 10 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Viroids: Definition and Features
Viroids are plant-restricted parasites that represent a remarkable model system to analyze many aspects of host-pathogen interactions at the genomic level. As the smallest known agents of infectious disease (247-401 nucleotides, nt), they have a highly structured, single-stranded circular naked and non-coding RNA genome. Although the list of known diseases caused by viroids and molecular characterization of the causative agents has expanded since they were discovered, their origin, evolution, and interaction with host genetic machinery to induce symptoms or escape the defensive system remain unclear.
  • 7.3K
  • 01 Nov 2020
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