Uirusu最新文献

The era of big data has begun in life sciences, and virology is no exception. Especially since COVID-19, virology has become one of the most genome data-rich fields in life sciences. In this article, I will introduce the new paradigm of "understanding and predicting viral epidemics and evolution, " made possible by the emergence of vast amounts of genome data, focusing on my research to date. Additionally, I would like to introduce our efforts toward advancing the field of viral informatics.

Biosafety Level 4 facilities have been established in our country to promote research and development and national capacity of diagnostic test systems for infectious diseases, including highly pathogenic viruses. In particular, the operation of a suit-type laboratory requiring positive pressure protective suits is a first for our country, and it is necessary to establish unique safety management technology. With the support of the Research Program on Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases of the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), we conducted research entitled "Study of Practical Biorisk Management in the Microbiological Containment Laboratories" from 2021 to 2023, with the aim of improving biosafety management technology in Japan. We have summarized our research project and its results obtained for the future direction of biorisk management research in Japan.

In the first quarter of the 21st century, infectious diseases caused by RNA viruses such as SARS, pandemic influenza viruses, MERS, Zika virus, and SARS-CoV-2 have spread. When such emerging and re-emerging viruses occur and spread, it is important for public health to quickly analyze the characteristics of these viruses and develop preventive measures. We found that the Zika virus causes damage to the testes, leading to testicular atrophy; that a vaccine based on mosquito salivary gland proteins suppresses mosquito-borne Zika virus transmission/infection; that the pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5 isolated from patients is comparable to that of Omicron BA.1; and that a strategy targeting regulatory T cells to enhance vaccine efficacy is effective. Here, I would like to briefly discuss these findings.

Reverse transcriptase (RT) and integrase (IN) are retrovirus enzymes to convert virus genomic RNA into provirus DNA state in host cells. The RT and IN encoded tandemly in the pol gene, are translated as a fused form and incorporated into the virus particles. Recently, we discovered the potential role of HIV-1 IN to regulate the reverse transcription through the fused state with RT (RT-IN). On the other hand, analysis of HIV-1 transcripts have revealed the variations in number of guanine residue at the 5' end (5'G) due to fluctuations in the transcription initiation point within HIV-1 provirus DNA. Importantly, the number of 5'G dictates the packaging of HIV genome RNA into virus particles serving as a template for the reverse transcription reaction. In this review, we provide new insights into the mechanism of HIV genome replication based on our recent findings of the structural-functional correlation of HIV enzymes (RT and IN) and virus genomic RNA.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a novel coronavirus that infects humans and causes respiratory symptoms, resulting in a global pandemic since its appearance in 2019. Neutralizing antibody production is an important immune response following SARS-CoV-2 infection, and a great deal of research has been performed regarding the immune response against SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, SARS-CoV-2 is constantly changing and multiple amino acid reconstitutions accumulated in the spike protein enabled viruses to escape from immune responses, especially from neutralizing antibodies. In this review, the antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 and the emergence of escape variants, and the development of broadly neutralizing antibodies will be introduced.