Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) encodes 12 viral microRNAs (miRNAs) that are expressed during latency. Research into KSHV miRNA function has suffered from a lack of genetic systems to study viral miRNA mutations in the context of the viral genome. We used the Escherichia coli Red recombination system together with a new bacmid background, BAC16, to create mutants for all known KS...

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is an oncogenic gammaherpes virus which is linked to pathogenesis of several human lymphatic malignancies. The EBV essential latent antigen EBNA3C is critical for efficient conversion of primary human B-lymphocytes to lymphoblastic cell lines and for continued LCL growth. EBNA3C, an EBV latent antigen with oncogenic potential can bind and regulate the functions of a wid...

AIM To develop an in vitro intact cell-based assay for screening selective cyclooxygenase inhibitors. METHODS Human cyclooxygenase-1 (hCOX-1) and cyclooxygenase-2 (hCOX-2) genes were cloned from human monocyte cell line THP-1 cells and expressed in Spodoptera frugiperda (sf9) insect cell line by Bac-to-Bac baculovirus expression systems. Infected sf9 cells were harvested 24 h post-infection (...

We constructed a series of gene knockout BmNPVs (KOVs) for each of 141 genes (Gomi et al., 1999; Katsuma et al., 2011) using the BmNPV T3 bacmid system (Ono et al., 2007) and lambda red recombination system (Datsenko and Wanner, 2000). In a subsequent analysis of the properties needed for infection using a marker gene, egfp (enhanced green fluorescent protein gene), inserted into the polyhedrin...

Hepcidin is an innate immune element which decreases the iron absorption from diet and iron releasing from macrophage cell. In contrast to the chemical iron chelators, there has been limited effort applied to the specific use of hepcidin as a new drug for decreasing the iron overload. Hepcidin is produced in different biological systems. For instance, E-coli is used for human hepcidin expressio...

The fp25k gene of Helicoverpa armigera single nucleocapsid nucleopolyhedrovirus (HearNPV) was studied. HearNPV fp25k gene transcription was found starting from about 18 h post-infection, and protein could be detected from the same time with antiserum against FP25K. To study the function of HearNPV fp25k, a recombinant HearNPV (HaBacWD11) with an enhanced green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene rep...

We previously established and characterized two insect cell lines (BmN-SWU1 and BmN-SWU2) from Bombyx mori ovaries. Here, we examined their differential susceptibilities to Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV) despite having originated from the same tissue source. BmN-SWU1 cells were susceptible and supported high titers of BmNPV replication, while BmN-SWU2 cells were resistant to BmNPV inf...

The global outbreak of novel A/H1N1 spread in human population worldwide has revealed an emergency need for producing a vaccine against this virus. Current influenza vaccines encounter problems with safety issues and weak response in high-risk population. It has been established that haemagglutinin is the most important viral antigen ...

In this study, we characterized Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV) orf76 (ac76), which is a highly conserved gene of unknown function in lepidopteran baculoviruses. Transcriptional analysis of ac76 revealed that transcription of multiple overlapping multicistronic transcripts initiates from a canonical TAAG late-transcription start motif but terminates at different 3'...