Obesity-Related Microenvironment Promotes Emergence of Virulent Influenza Virus Strains

Emergence and dynamics of influenza super-strains

BACKGROUND Influenza super-strains can emerge through recombination of strains from birds, pigs, and humans. However, once a new recombinant strain emerges, it is not clear whether the strain is capable of sustaining an outbreak. In certain cases, such strains have caused major influenza pandemics. METHODS Here we develop a multi-host (i.e., birds, pigs, and humans) and multi-strain model of ...

Differential interactions of virulent and non-virulent H. parasuis strains with naïve or swine influenza virus pre-infected dendritic cells

Pigs possess a microbiota in the upper respiratory tract that includes Haemophilus parasuis. Pigs are also considered the reservoir of influenza viruses and infection with this virus commonly results in increased impact of bacterial infections, including those by H. parasuis. However, the mechanisms involved in host innate responses towards H. parasuis and their implications in a co-infection w...

Role of Interferon in Replication of Virulent and Attenuated Strains of Measles Virus

Effect of cyclophosphamide on infections in mice caused by virulent and avirulent strains of influenza virus.

Induced immunosuppression with the drug cyclophosphamide was shown to convert the relatively harmless infection with an avirulent strain of Kunz influenza virus into a fatal pneumonic illness. The drug was also shown to increase the mortality of mice infected with low concentrations of a virulent variant of this strain, but it delayed the time of death of mice that were infected with high conce...

Sequence analysis of the VP1 gene in three very virulent Iranian infectious bursal disease virus strains

Infectious bursal disease (IBD) is a highly contagious disease of chickens caused by the infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV). This study was conducted to characterize three IBDV strains from Iran. A reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) procedure was used to amplify a 715-bp fragment of the VP1 gene from IBDV strains. Amplified VP1 fragments of the three Iranian IBDV strai...