Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) mutants that are attenuated for neurovirulence are being used for the treatment of cancer. We have examined the safety of G207, a multimutated replication-competent HSV-1 vector, in mice. BALB/c mice inoculated intracerebrally or intracerebroventricularly with 10(7) PFU of G207 survived for over 20 weeks with no apparent symptoms of disease. In contrast, over...

A long-held dogma posits that strong presentation to the immune system of the dominant influenza virus glycoprotein antigens neuraminidase (NA) and hemagglutinin (HA) is paramount for inducing protective immunity against influenza virus infection. We have deliberately violated this dogma by constructing a recombinant influenza virus strain of A/PR8/34 (H1N1) in which expression of NA and HA gen...

Vaccinia virus (VACV) is an established vector for vaccination and is beginning to prove effective as an oncolytic agent. Industrial production of VACV stands to benefit in future from advances made by synthetic biology in genome engineering and standardisation. The CV-1 cell line can be used for VACV propagation and has been used extensively with the CRISPR/Cas9 system for making precise edits...

During 2013, a novel avian-origin H7N9 influenza A virus (IAV) emerged in China and subsequently caused large economic and public health burdens. We experimentally infected three common peridomestic wild mammals with H7N9 (A/Anhui/1/2013) IAV. Striped skunks exhibited the highest burden of disease followed by raccoons and cottontail rabbits. Striped skunks also produced the highest levels of vi...

House finches, Carpodacus mexicanus, were experimentally infected with high and standard doses of western equine encephalomyelitis virus (WEEV) or St. Louis encephalitis virus (SLEV) to determine whether high doses would produce an elevated viremia response and a high frequency of chronic infections. Finches inoculated with approximately100,000 plaque forming units (PFU) of WEEV or SLEV produce...

Quantifying the dose of an arbovirus transmitted by mosquitoes is essential for designing pathogenesis studies simulating natural infection of vertebrates. Titration of saliva collected in vitro from infected mosquitoes may not accurately estimate titers transmitted during blood feeding, and infection by needle injection may affect vertebrate pathogenesis. We compared the amount of Venezuelan e...

the manufacturer's instructions. Viral titers of JMB-185, as determined by real-time quantitative RT-PCR, were 4.25 × 10 3 PFU, 5.07 × 10 7 PFU, and 7.33 × 10 6 PFU for the clinical sample, first passage, and second passage, respectively. The isolation and characterization of Zika virus from a resident with no travel history confirm that the virus is circulating in Indonesia and that, by mimick...

The susceptibility to infection with a Panamanian isolate of St. Louis encephalitis (SLE) virus was evaluated in Culex quinquefasciatus, Haemagogus equinus, Mansonia dyari, Sabethes cyaneus and Deinocerites pseudes. When fed on blood-virus suspensions using the hanging drop or pledget technique, the median infective dose (ID50) of SLE virus for colonized strains of Cx. quinquefasciatus and Hg. ...

Conventional virologic and in situ nucleic acid hybridization methods were used to study immunocompetent and immunosuppressed 3-week old BALB/c mice inoculated intravitreally with 10(4) plaque-forming units (pfu) of murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV). Immunocompetent mice experienced a self-limited ocular infection with peak virus titers of 10(3.5) pfu/ml in the retina-choroid fraction on day 4 of i...

We have demonstrated the antilisterial activity of generally recognized as safe (GRAS) bacteriophage LISTEX P100 (phage P100) on the surface of raw salmon fillet tissue against Listeria monocytogenes serotypes 1/2a and 4b. In a broth model system, phage P100 completely inhibited L. monocytogenes growth at 4 degrees Celsius for 12 days, at 10 degrees Celsius for 8 days, and at 30 degrees Celsius...