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BACKGROUND:West Nile virus (WNV) is a highly pathogenic flavivirus transmitted by Culex spp. mosquitoes. In North America (NA), lineage 1 WNV caused the largest outbreak of neuroinvasive disease to date, while a novel pathogenic lineage 2 strain circulates in southern Europe. To estimate WNV lineage 2 epidemic potential it is paramount to know if mosquitoes from currently WNV-free areas can support further spread of this epidemic. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We assessed WNV vector competence of Culex pipiens mosquitoes originating from north-western Europe (NWE) in direct comparison with those from NA. We exposed mosquitoes to infectious blood meals of lineage 1 or 2 WNV and determined the infection and transmission rates. We explored reasons for vector competence differences by comparing intrathoracic injection versus blood meal infection, and we investigated the influence of temperature. We found that NWE mosquitoes are highly competent for both WNV lineages, with transmission rates up to 25%. Compared to NA mosquitoes, transmission rates for lineage 2 WNV were significantly elevated in NWE mosquitoes due to better virus dissemination from the midgut and a shorter extrinsic incubation time. WNV infection rates further increased with temperature increase. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:Our study provides experimental evidence to indicate markedly different risk levels between both continents for lineage 2 WNV transmission and suggests a degree of genotype-genotype specificity in the interaction between virus and vector. Our experiments with varying temperatures explain the current localized WNV activity in southern Europe, yet imply further epidemic spread throughout NWE during periods with favourable climatic conditions. This emphasizes the need for intensified surveillance of virus activity in current WNV disease-free regions and warrants increased awareness in clinics throughout Europe.

The emerging arthritogenic, mosquito-borne chikungunya virus (CHIKV) causes severe disease in humans and represents a serious public health threat in countries where Aedes spp mosquitoes are present. This study describes for the first time the successful production of CHIKV virus-like particles (VLPs) in insect cells using recombinant baculoviruses. This well-established expression system is rapidly scalable to volumes required for epidemic responses and proved well suited for processing of CHIKV glycoproteins and production of enveloped VLPs. Herein we show that a single immunization with 1 µg of non-adjuvanted CHIKV VLPs induced high titer neutralizing antibody responses and provided complete protection against viraemia and joint inflammation upon challenge with the Réunion Island CHIKV strain in an adult wild-type mouse model of CHIKV disease. CHIKV VLPs produced in insect cells using recombinant baculoviruses thus represents as a new, safe, non-replicating and effective vaccine candidate against CHIKV infections.

Vi-rút gâybệnh đốm trắng (WSSV) là một trong những vi-rút gây bệnh nguy hiểm trên tôm và là mối đe dọa lớn cho nghề nuôi trồng thủy sản.Tuy nhiên, chưa có biện pháp hữu hiệu để điều trị bệnh đốm trắng. Hiện nay nhiều nghiên cứu chỉ ra rằng protein VP28 và VP19 là những protein giúp tạo vắc-xin protein đề kháng lại sự xâm nhiễm của WSSV cho tôm. Phương thức lan truyền bệnh qua đường miệng (peroral infectivity) luôn luôn cần sự hiện diện của các nhân tố truyền bệnh qua đường miệng (peroral infectivity factor ? PIFs). Các nhân tố này không chỉ hiện diện ở Baculovirus mà hiện diện trên hầu hết các loài vi-rút có vật chất di truyền là ADN của động vật không xương sống. Những nhân tố truyền bệnh này có thể là những yếu tố thay thế tiềm năng trong quá trình can thiệp miễn dịch giúp động vật kháng lại sự nhiễm bệnh. Trong nghiên cứu này, protein tái tổ hợp được biểu hiện trong tế bào vi khuẩn E. coli bằng cách nối gen mã hóa cho protein P74 (WSSV ORF 72) trên WSSV với vector biểu hiện pET28?. Để thu được lượng protein nhiều nhất cho quá trình tinh sạch tiếp theo, mức độ biểu hiện của protein được chuẩn hóa qua các thông số khác nhau để đạt được mức độ cao nhất. Sau khi tinh sạch, protein P74 được gửi đi tạo kháng thể đa dòng kháng lại protein P74 của WSSV trên thỏ. Protein WSSV-P74 có kích thước là 108 kDa. Trong thời gian tạo kháng thể, WSSV được tăng sinh trên tôm thẻ chân trắng Penaeus vannamei (P. vannamei). Dịch chiết vi-rút được sử dụng cho các thí nghiệm nhận diện và xác định vị trí của protein P74 trên WSSV. Kết quả đã xác định sự hiện diện của protein P74 trên WSSV. Mặc dù vị trí và chức năng của protein cần nghiên cứu thêm nhưng kết quả này cũng tạo tiền đề cho các nghiên cứu kế tiếp trong việc tạo ra các loại vắc-xin protein hiệu quả trong việc phòng bệnh đốm trắng trên tôm.

The competence of the tsetse fly Glossina pallidipes (Diptera; Glossinidae) to acquire salivary gland hypertrophy virus (SGHV), to support virus replication and successfully transmit the virus depends on complex interactions between Glossina and SGHV macromolecules. Critical requisites to SGHV transmission are its replication and secretion of mature virions into the fly's salivary gland (SG) lumen. However, secretion of host proteins is of equal importance for successful transmission and requires cataloging of G. pallidipes secretome proteins from hypertrophied and non-hypertrophied SGs.After electrophoretic profiling and in-gel trypsin digestion, saliva proteins were analyzed by nano-LC-MS/MS. MaxQuant/Andromeda search of the MS data against the non-redundant (nr) GenBank database and a G. morsitans morsitans SG EST database, yielded a total of 521 hits, 31 of which were SGHV-encoded. On a false discovery rate limit of 1% and detection threshold of least 2 unique peptides per protein, the analysis resulted in 292 Glossina and 25 SGHV MS-supported proteins. When annotated by the Blast2GO suite, at least one gene ontology (GO) term could be assigned to 89.9% (285/317) of the detected proteins. Five (∼1.8%) Glossina and three (∼12%) SGHV proteins remained without a predicted function after blast searches against the nr database. Sixty-five of the 292 detected Glossina proteins contained an N-terminal signal/secretion peptide sequence. Eight of the SGHV proteins were predicted to be non-structural (NS), and fourteen are known structural (VP) proteins.SGHV alters the protein expression pattern in Glossina. The G. pallidipes SG secretome encompasses a spectrum of proteins that may be required during the SGHV infection cycle. These detected proteins have putative interactions with at least 21 of the 25 SGHV-encoded proteins. Our findings opens venues for developing novel SGHV mitigation strategies to block SGHV infections in tsetse production facilities such as using SGHV-specific antibodies and phage display-selected gut epithelia-binding peptides.

Pancreas disease (PD) and sleeping disease (SD) are important viral scourges in aquaculture of Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout. The etiological agent of PD and SD is salmonid alphavirus (SAV), an unusual member of the Togaviridae (genus Alphavirus). SAV replicates at lower temperatures in fish. Outbreaks of SAV are associated with large economic losses of ~17 to 50 million $/year. Current control strategies rely on vaccination with inactivated virus formulations that are cumbersome to obtain and have intrinsic safety risks. In this research we were able to obtain non-infectious virus-like particles (VLPs) of SAV via expression of recombinant baculoviruses encoding SAV capsid protein and two major immunodominant viral glycoproteins, E1 and E2 in Spodoptera frugiperda Sf9 insect cells. However, this was only achieved when a temperature shift from 27°C to lower temperatures was applied. At 27°C, precursor E2 (PE2) was misfolded and not processed by host furin into mature E2. Hence, E2 was detected neither on the surface of infected cells nor as VLPs in the culture fluid. However, when temperatures during protein expression were lowered, PE2 was processed into mature E2 in a temperature-dependent manner and VLPs were abundantly produced. So, temperature shift-down during synthesis is a prerequisite for correct SAV glycoprotein processing and recombinant VLP production.

White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is the sole member of the novel Nimaviridae family, and the source of major economic problems in shrimp aquaculture. WSSV appears to have rapidly spread worldwide after the first reported outbreak in the early 1990s. Genomic deletions of various sizes occur at two loci in the WSSV genome, the ORF14/15 and ORF23/24 variable regions, and these have been used as molecular markers to study patterns of viral spread over space and time. We describe the dynamics underlying the process of WSSV genome shrinkage using empirical data and a simple mathematical model.We genotyped new WSSV isolates from five Asian countries, and analyzed this information together with published data. Genome size appears to stabilize over time, and deletion size in the ORF23/24 variable region was significantly related to the time of the first WSSV outbreak in a particular country. Parameter estimates derived from fitting a simple mathematical model of genome shrinkage to the data support a geometric progression (k