Abstract Parainfluenza virus 3 (PIV3) remains to be a global burden infants, the elderly, and immunocompromised individuals. With no approved therapeutics or vaccines, PIV3 continues cause large portion of lower respiratory illness hospitalizations in young children. Similar other paramyxoviruses, utilizes two structural proteins, fusion (F) protein hemagglutinin-neuraminidase (HN) protein, for...

Influenza vaccines have long been manufactured in embryonated chicken eggs. This method has some problems such as a production period (about 6 months) and use of large amounts infectious pathogens. Recently, the recombinant subunit using baculovirus–insect cell system extensively investigated. In this system, viral immunodominant components can be produced more rapidly larger scale than convent...

Oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis was used to construct chimeric cDNAs that encode the extracellular and transmembrane domains of the vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein (G) linked to the cytoplasmic domain of either the immunoglobulin mu membrane heavy chain, the hemagglutinin glycoprotein of influenza virus, or the small glycoprotein (p23) of infectious bronchitis virus. Biochemical an...

Botulism is a disease involving intoxication with botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs), toxic proteins produced by Clostridium botulinum and other clostridia. The 150 kDa neurotoxin is produced in conjunction with other proteins to form the botulinum progenitor toxin complex (PTC), alternating in size from 300 kDa to 500 kDa. These progenitor complexes can be classified into hemagglutinin positive or ...

FLAN (short for FLu ANnotation), the NCBI web server for genome annotation of influenza virus (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomes/FLU/Database/annotation.cgi) is a tool for user-provided influenza A virus or influenza B virus sequences. It can validate and predict protein sequences encoded by an input flu sequence. The input sequence is BLASTed against a database containing influenza sequences...

To enable enhanced paper-based diagnostics with improved detection capabilities, new methods are needed to immobilize affinity reagents to porous substrates, especially for capture molecules other than IgG. To this end, we have developed and characterized three novel methods for immobilizing protein-based affinity reagents to nitrocellulose membranes. We have demonstrated these methods using re...

We used a panel of monoclonal antibodies to H9 hemagglutinin to select 18 escape mutants of mouse-adapted influenza A/Swine/Hong Kong/9/98 (H9N2) virus. Cross-reactions of the mutants with the antibodies and the sequencing of hemagglutinin genes revealed two minimally overlapping epitopes. We mapped the amino acid changes to two areas of the recently reported three-dimensional structure of A/Sw...

Constant antigenic drift of circulating influenza viruses leads to inefficiency seasonal vaccines, thus requiring annual re-design these vaccines. Therefore, the development a universal vaccine is particular relevance. A promising line research in this area design immunogens consisting conserved protein fragments from different viral strains. The aim work was assess immunogenicity DNA vaccines ...

UNLABELLED Zoonotic avian influenza virus infections may lead to epidemics or pandemics. The 1918 pandemic influenza virus has an avian influenza virus-like genome, and its H1 hemagglutinin was identified as a key mammalian virulence factor. A chimeric 1918 virus expressing a contemporary avian H1 hemagglutinin, however, displayed murine pathogenicity indistinguishable from that of the 1918 vir...