The parts are greater than the whole: the role of semi-infectious particles in influenza A virus biology
Publication date: December 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 33Author(s): Meghan Diefenbacher, Jiayi Sun, Christopher B BrookeThe influenza A virus (IAV) genome is incorporated into newly produced virions through a tightly orchestrated process that is one of the best studied examples of genome packaging by a segmented virus. Despite the remarkable selectivity and efficiency of this process, it is clear that the vast majority of IAV virions are unable to express the full set of essential viral gene products and are thus incapable of productive replication in the absence of complementation. Here, we attempt to ...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 25, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
Insect-specific viruses: from discovery to potential translational applications
Publication date: December 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 33Author(s): Shahideh Nouri, Emilyn E Matsumura, Yen-Wen Kuo, Bryce W FalkOver the past decade the scientific community has experienced a new age of virus discovery in arthropods in general, and in insects in particular. Next generation sequencing and advanced bioinformatics tools have provided new insights about insect viromes and viral evolution. In this review, we discuss some high-throughput sequencing technologies used to discover viruses in insects and the challenges raised in data interpretations. Additionally, the discovery of these novel vi...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 24, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
Complex interactions between insect-borne rice viruses and their vectors
Publication date: December 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 33Author(s): Jing Wei, Dongsheng Jia, Qianzhuo Mao, Xiaofeng Zhang, Qian Chen, Wei Wu, Hongyan Chen, Taiyun WeiInsect-borne rice viral diseases are widespread and economically important in many rice-growing countries. Long-term associations between rice viruses and their insect vectors result in evolutionary trade-offs that maintain a balance between the fitness cost of the viral infection of insects and the persistent transmission of the virus by the insect. To promote optimal replication, rice viruses activate innate immune responses, such as auto...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 20, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
Targeted disruption of aphid transmission: a vision for the management of crop diseases caused by Luteoviridae members
Publication date: December 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 33Author(s): Michelle Heck, Veronique BraultViruses in the Luteoviridae cause plant diseases that are notoriously difficult to manage. Referred to as luteovirids, these single stranded, positive-sense RNA viruses are transmitted by aphids in a circulative, non-propagative manner. This review highlights new potential strategies to control luteovirid disease by blocking virus transmission by aphids. These include: first, interfering with aphid–virus interactions to inhibit virus acquisition by aphids, second, manipulating the host plant to block vir...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 20, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
New insights on the transmission mechanism of tenuiviruses by their vector insects
Publication date: December 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 33Author(s): Wenwen Liu, Jamal-U-Ddin Hajano, Xifeng WangTenuiviruses, which cause serious diseases in rice, wheat, maize and other gramineae crops, recently have been assigned to the family Phenuiviridae in the order Bunyavirales. Transmission of tenuiviruses to host plants depends on the specific vector planthoppers. The interaction between the virus and insect offers critical points for developing an efficient management strategy. This review focuses on recent advancements in our understanding of the interactions between the virus and insect comp...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 18, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
RNAi-mediated antiviral immunity in mammals
Publication date: October 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 32Author(s): Ben BerkhoutRNA interference (RNAi) was discovered in plants where it functions as the main antiviral pathway and this antiviral role was subsequently extended to invertebrates. But it remained hotly debated whether RNAi fulfils a similar role in mammals that already have a potent innate immune system based on interferon and an elaborate adaptive immune system. On the one hand, mammalian cells do encode most of the RNAi machinery, but this could be used exclusively to control cellular gene expression via micro RNAs (miRNAs). But on the o...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 15, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
Collective properties of viral infectivity
Publication date: December 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 33Author(s): Rafael SanjuánIndividual virions typically fail to infect cells. Such decoupling between virions and infectious units is most evident in multicomponent and other segmented viruses, but is also frequent in non-segmented viruses. Despite being a well-known observation, the causes and implications of low single-virion infectivity often remain unclear. In principle, this can originate from intrinsic genetic and/or structural virion defects, but also from host infection barriers that limit early viral proliferation. Hence, viruses may have ...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 14, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
Adaptation by copy number variation in monopartite viruses
Publication date: December 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 33Author(s): Avraham Bayer, Greg Brennan, Adam P GeballeViruses evolve rapidly in response to host defenses and to exploit new niches. Gene amplification, a common adaptive mechanism in prokaryotes, archaea, and eukaryotes, has also contributed to viral evolution, especially of large DNA viruses. In experimental systems, gene amplification is one mechanism for rapidly overcoming selective pressures. Because the amplification generally incurs a fitness cost, emergence of adaptive point mutations within the amplified locus or elsewhere in the genome c...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 14, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
Engineering virus resistance via CRISPR–Cas systems
Publication date: October 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 32Author(s): Ahmed Mahas, Magdy MahfouzIn prokaryotes, CRISPR/Cas adaptive immunity systems target and destroy nucleic acids derived from invading bacteriophages and other foreign genetic elements. In eukaryotes, the native function of these systems has been exploited to combat viruses in mammals and plants. Rewired CRISPR/Cas9 and CRISPR/Cas13 systems have been used to confer resistance against DNA and RNA viruses, respectively. Here, we discuss recent approaches employing CRISPR/Cas systems to combat viruses in eukaryotes, highlight key challenges,...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 11, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
The need for improved vaccines against foot-and-mouth disease
Publication date: April 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 29Author(s): Teresa de los Santos, Fayna Diaz-San Segundo, Luis L RodriguezFoot-and-mouth disease (FMD) continues to be the viral disease posing the greatest economic threat to agriculture. An unusually fast replication rate, extreme transmissibility, broad species tropism and antigenic diversity have made its etiologic agent, FMD virus, a difficult pathogen to defeat. Over the last 70 years, use of an inactivated virus vaccine has played a key role in disease control and eradication was possible in certain regions of the world. However, a rapidly chan...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 10, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
Current status of Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome vaccine development
Publication date: April 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 29Author(s): Lisa M Reece, David WC Beasley, Gregg N Milligan, Vanessa V Sarathy, Alan DT BarrettSevere Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (SFTS) is a new emerging tick-borne disease caused by the phlebovirus, SFTS virus (SFTSV). The virus was discovered in central China in 2009 and has since been identified in both Japan and South Korea. Significant progress has been made on the molecular biology of the virus, and this has been used to develop diagnostic assays and reagents. Less progress has been made on the epidemiology, maintenance and transmissi...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 10, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
Recent advances in veterinary applications of structural vaccinology
Publication date: April 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 29Author(s): Bryan Charleston, Simon P GrahamThe deployment of effective veterinary vaccines has had a major impact on improving food security and consequently human health. Effective vaccines were essential for the global eradication of Rinderpest and the control and eradication of foot-and-mouth disease in some regions of the world. Effective vaccines also underpin the development of modern intensive food production systems such as poultry and aquaculture. However, for some high consequence diseases there are still significant challenges to develop e...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 10, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
Fundamental challenges to the development of a preventive HIV vaccine
This article examines fundamental challenges to the development of a preventive HIV vaccine. They include the initially erroneous but powerful perception of the natural history of HIV disease, as an acute rather than a chronic illness even in the absence of therapy, the lack of appreciation of the quasispecies biology of HIV and the abandonment of principles of immunology theory caused by the allure of technological prowess. In addition two other important aspects are discussed: vaccines directed against transmitted/founder viruses (T/F) and the reconsideration of HIV inactivation as a viable means to obtain a preventive H...
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 10, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
Editors-Board-Issue sections
Publication date: April 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 29Author(s): (Source: Current Opinion in Virology)
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 10, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
Contents
Publication date: April 2018Source: Current Opinion in Virology, Volume 29Author(s): (Source: Current Opinion in Virology)
Source: Current Opinion in Virology - July 10, 2018 Category: Virology Source Type: research
