To investigate whether genetic factors of innate immunity might influence susceptibility and/or progression in individuals infected with SARS, we evaluated the CD14 gene polymorphism in 198 Hong Kong blood donors and 152 Hong Kong severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) patients who were previously genotyped for FcgammaRIIA polymorphisms. The prevalence of the CD14-159CC polymorphism was signi...

The severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) spike protein (S) is a major target for neutralizing antibodies. Retroviral SARS-CoV S pseudotypes have been constructed and used to develop an in vitro microneutralization assay that is both sensitive and specific for SARS-CoV neutralizing antibodies. Neutralization titers measured by this assay are highly correlated to th...

The main proteinase of SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) plays an important role in viral transcription and replication, and is an attractive target for anti-SARS drug development. The important thing is to understand its binding mechanism with possible ligands. In this study, we investigated possible noncanonical interactions, potential inhibitors, and binding pockets in the main proteina...

Four cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that occurred from December 16, 2003, to January 8, 2004, in the city of Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, were investigated. Clinical specimens collected from these patients were tested by provincial and national laboratories in China as well as members of the World Health Organization SARS Reference and Verification Laboratory Network...

Are We There Yet? The spring 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which resulted in more than 8000 cases and 774 deaths (1), severely challenged public health and health care systems globally. It is not possible to predict whether a large SARS outbreak will recur, but several potential sources of a resurgence exist. The SARS-associated coronavirus is believed to be of zoon...

BACKGROUND Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an emerging infectious disease caused by a new coronavirus strain, SARS-CoV. Specific proteomic patterns might be present in serum in response to the infection and could be useful for early detection of the disease. METHODS Using surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization (SELDI) ProteinChip technology, we profiled and compared serum pr...

BACKGROUND Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV is a newly emerging virus that causes SARS with high mortality rate in infected people. Successful control of the global SARS epidemic will require rapid and sensitive diagnostic tests to monitor its spread, as well as, the development of vaccines and new antiviral compounds including neutralizing antibodies that effectively prevent or tre...

Myelinated pulmonary afferents are classified as rapidly adapting receptors (RARs) or slowly adapting receptors (SARs) by their adaptation rate. Behavior of SARs varies greatly, and therefore the present study tries to further categorize SARs according to their mechanical properties. Single-fiber activity of 104 SARs was examined in anesthetized, open-chest, artificially ventilated rabbits. Acc...

The 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), caused by a previously unknown coronavirus called SARS-CoV, had profound social and economic impacts worldwide. Since then, structure-function studies of SARS-CoV proteins have provided a wealth of information that increases our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of SARS. While no effective therapy is currently available, co...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a lifethreatening emerging respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, SARS-CoV. The nucleocapsid (N) protein of SARS-CoV is highly antigenic and may be a suitable candidate for diagnostic applications. We constructed truncated recombinant N proteins (N1 [1-422 aa], N2 [1- 109 aa], and N3 [110-422 aa]) and determined their antigenicity by Western b...