Hepatitis A is a common disease in developing countries and Albania has a high prevalence of this disease associated to young age. In spite of the occurrence of a unique serotype there are different genotypes classified from I to VII. Genotype characterisation of HAV isolates circulating in Albania has been undertaken, as well as the study of the occurrence of antigenic variants in the proteins...

Structural studies have implicated Cys(9), Cys(104) and Cys(207) of simian virus 40 (SV40) Vp1 in disulfide bond formation. Recently, we have shown the three cysteines to be essential for disulfide linkage of Vp1 complexes in vitro. Here, the role of the three cysteines was explored during the course of SV40 infection. Single-, double- and triple-mutant Vp1 at Cys(9), Cys(104) and Cys(207) cont...

Human norovirus (HuNoV) is a major causative agent of food-borne gastroenteritis worldwide. Currently, there are no vaccines or effective therapeutic interventions for this virus. Development of an attenuated vaccine for HuNoV has been hampered by the inability to grow the virus in cell culture. Thus, a vector-based vaccine may be ideal. In this study, we constructed a recombinant vesicular sto...

Norovirus GII.4 is a major cause of global outbreaks of viral gastroenteritis in humans, and has evolved by antigenic changes under the constantly changing human herd immunity. Major shift in the pandemic GII.4 strain periodically occurs concomitant with changes in the antigenic capsid protein VP1. However, how the newly emerged strain evolves after the onset of pandemic remains unclear. To add...

backgrounds and aims: coxsakievirus b3 (cvb3), one of the six coxsakievirus b serotypes, is a member of the enterovirus genus within the picornaviridae family. cvb3 is an important pathogen of viral myocarditis, which accounts for more than 50% of viral myocarditis cases. the genome of cvb3, like that of other entroviruses, is a single-stranded, sense, polyadenylated rna molecule with 7400 nucl...

Reactivation of the polyomavirus BK (BKV) causes polyomavirus nephropathy (PVN) in kidney transplant (KTx) recipients and may lead to loss of the renal allograft. We have identified two HLA-A*0201-restricted nine-amino-acid cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes of the BKV major capsid protein VP1, VP1(p44), and VP1(p108). Using tetramer staining assays, we showed that these epitopes were recogn...

UNLABELLED Human polyomavirus 6 (HPyV6) and HPyV7 are commonly found on human skin. We have determined the X-ray structures of their major capsid protein, VP1, at resolutions of 1.8 and 1.7 Å, respectively. In polyomaviruses, VP1 commonly determines antigenicity as well as cell-surface receptor specificity, and the protein is therefore linked to attachment, tropism, and ultimately, viral pathog...

The small brown planthopper (SBPH) is the main vector for rice stripe virus (RSV), which causes serious rice stripe disease in East Asia. To characterize the virus-vector interactions, the SBPH cDNA library was screened with RSV ribonucleoprotein (RNP) as bait using a GAL4-based yeast two-hybrid system. The interaction between RSV-RNP and the Himetobi P virus (HiPV, an insect picorna-like virus...

In polyomaviruses the pentameric capsomers are interlinked by the long C-terminal arm of the structural protein VP1. The T=7 icosahedral structure of these viruses is possible due to an intriguing adaptability of this linker arm to the different local environments in the capsid. To explore the assembly process, we have compared the structure of two virus-like particles (VLPs) formed, as we foun...