No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The recent emergence of BT in Europe and the spread of BTV -8 further north in the region than ever before, has emphasised the importance of vaccination against this economically important pathogen. The chemically inactivated and live attenuated BTV vaccines that are currently available do provide significant levels of protection (Savini et al., 2007). However, there are safety concerns over both vaccines, and it has not been possible to 'distinguish infected from vaccinated animals' (DIVA assays), making surveillance more difficult. A new generation of BTV vaccines is therefore required for use as part of appropriate surveillance and control strategies. 'Next generation' BTV -8 subunit-vaccine-candidates were prepared as: individual bacterial-expressed viral-proteins; 'DNA vaccines' composed of plasmid DNA carrying BTV genes; and recombinant Modified Vaccinia Ankara (rMV A) also carrying BTV genes. These systems were used to explore the potential of BTV VP2-fragment-l, -2 and -3, VP2-complete, VP5 and VP7 as subunit vaccines. Different vaccination strategies were evaluated in IFNAR -/- mice: by vaccination with bacterial expressed proteins (fragmented VP2+ VP5 + VP7; or complete VP2+ VP5 + VP7) combined with Montanide, in a prime-boost regime -administered at a three week interval. A second vaccination strategy was based on (in situ) expression of viral proteins, by priming with plasmid DNA containing cDNA copies of BTV VP2, VP5 and/or VP7 capsid-genes, followed by vaccination with recombinant Modified Vaccinia Ankara (rMY A) expressing the same proteins, at a three week interval. An alternative prime-boost regime was also used, vaccinating (prime and boost) with rMV A (expressing these proteins) on both occasions. The unvaccinated-control mice, as well as those vaccinated with VP7 (alone) or with (fragmented VP2+ VP5 + VP7) were not protected against a subsequent challenge with a lethal dose (lOpfu) of BTV-8. However, 50% of mice vaccinated with complete VP2+ VP5 + VP7 were protected. All of the mice vaccinated with DNA-rMV A or rMV A-rMV A expressing VP2; or VP2, VP5 and VP7, were protected, with VP2-alone generating the highest level of protection. Further work will be needed to test different combinations of these BTV- subunit vaccine candidates, to validate their use and efficacy in ruminants (the natural hosts for BTV infection), and further investigate their potential for protection against heterologous serotypes. 3 I

No description available.

No description available.

Bluetongue virus (BTY) is an orbivirus of the Reoviridae family that infects sheep and other ruminants. BTY has three non-structural proteins, NS I, NS2 and NS3/3A. NS I forms tubular structures and its function is currently unknown. To investigate the role of NS I in BTY infection, the interactions of NS I with mammalian and insect cellular proteins, and BTY viral proteins, were examined. BTY NS I was identi tied as interacting with aldolase A, NUBP 1, Pyruvate kinase M2, cathespin B, SUM 0-1 and peptide TY7 using the yeast two-hybrid system, ELISA and immunofluorescence analysis. TY7 and NS I caused extensive cell death within 24h of co-expression; this cell death was not apoptosis and reduced BTY yield by 37%. The interaction of NS I with SUMO-I and its importance in BTY infection was confinned using siRNA to knockdown SUMO-I during BTY-IO infection. Knockdown of SUMO-I elicited a dramatic reduction in virus yield by 73%. NS I interactions with proteins of the insect vector Culicoides were also examined. A putative interaction between NS 1 and the ubiquitin activating enzyme El (UBA EI) ofCulicoides was identified during screening of a phage library, this has not been confirmed by other means. NS 1 interactions with other BTY proteins were analysed using immunoprecipitation and a strong interaction between NS 1 and YP7 was identified; this was confim1ed using the yeast two-hybrid system and immunoflourescence. Two main roles have been hypothesised for NS I from this data; firstly it is likely that NS I interaction with SUMO-I and UBA E I allows the targeting of specific proteins for sumoylation and ubiquitination allowing NS 1 to modify the host response to BTY infection. Secondly it is possible that NS I serves as an anchor for YP7 and virus cores allowing the build up of cores at the cytoskeleton in close proximity to YP2 for subsequent assembly and release. RNAi against NS J eliminated tubule formation but did not affect virus yield or YP7 and SUMO-J distribution and expression. It is therefore likely that the function of NS I does not rely on tubule fom1ation and that tubules are a form of storage for the active monomer of NSI.

The structure, kinetics, and interactions of the conserved 16mer and 15mer RNA motifs of the internal ribosome entry site (IRES) of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease virus (FMDV), have been investigated by homonuclear and heteronuclear NMR techniques. The 16mer RNA is endowed with a classic GNRA tetraloop motif, which is essential for IRES activity and the 15mer RNA motif is a potential tetraloop receptor. We have determined three high resolution NMR solution structures of the 16mer apo-RNA, the 16mer Mg2+ RNA complex and the 15mer apo-RNA with RMSDs of 0.17Å, 0.16Å and 0.35Å, respectively. The high precision of these NMR structures was achieved by including a large number of NMR experimental restraints, derived from NOEs and coupling constants, and validating them using the MolProbity program. The 16mer RNA structure comprised of six base pairs with a GUAA tetraloop and the 15mer RNA structure comprised of four base pairs and a large heptaloop; this is the first heptaloop to be studied by NMR.Addition of Mg2+ to the 16mer apo-RNA caused selective chemical shift changes to the stem G177 and loop G178 imino proton resonances, suggesting Mg2+-induced conformational change to the GUAA tetraloop. This was supported by a significant chemical shift change to the selectively 19F-labelled loop U179 in the 5-FU 16mer RNA. Furthermore, variable temperature experiments revealed retarded imino proton exchange for the stem and loop imino protons, demonstrating the enhanced thermodynamic stability conferred by Mg2+. This enhancement in stability was confirmed by measuring the imino proton exchange rates for the 16mer apo-RNA and the 16mer Mg2+ RNA complex. Analysis of the 16mer apo-RNA and its Mg2+ RNA complex NMR solution structures revealed that Mg2+-induced structural changes to the GUAA tetraloop act to stabilise the loop via stronger base stacking and intramolecular interactions. Fascinatingly, we discovered that Mg2+ ions provide increased stability required for the formation of a G.A sheared base pair in the GUAA tetraloop. RNA-RNA interactions between the 16mer and 15mer RNAs and their fluorinated analogues were studied by NMR spectroscopy. Small changes to chemical shift and linewidth of proton peaks in the non-fluorinated RNA-RNA complex provided evidence for a weak interaction between the loop of the 16mer RNA and the stem of the 15mer RNA. 19F-NMR experiments revealed additional peaks for the 19F-labelled U179 of the fluorinated 16mer/15mer RNA complex providing further good evidence of RNA-RNA interaction. The NMR structures of the conserved RNA motifs and their interactions have yielded important information in understanding the properties and behaviour of RNA. This will provide the first stepping stone in understanding the IRES mechanism and its use in antiviral therapy and biotechnology.

Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is an economically devastating and highly contagious livestock pathogen. It exists as seven serotypes, comprising numerous antigenically distinct subtypes. The large amount of antigenic heterogeneity has confounded attempts at developing broadly reactive vaccines. In order to overcome this issue the fundamentals of the interactions between the virus and the host humoral immune response must first be understood. Previous work in this area using monoclonal antibody (mAb) escape mutants has identified five antigenic sites for the O serotype and efforts have been made to quantify their relative importance. However, this does not represent a complete picture of serotype O antigenicity. The work conducted in this thesis demonstrates the role of a limited number of dominant substitutions in mediating the antigenic diversity of serotype O Foot-and-Mouth disease virus. Two alternative but complementary methods for identifying epitopes were developed. The first used a mathematical model to analyse newly generated serological and sequence data from 105 viruses, cultured for this purpose (and cross-reacted to 5 reference antisera), in the context of an existing crystallographic structure to identify and quantify the antigenic importance of sites on the surface of the virus. The second approach was purely structural, using existing B cell epitope prediction tools to develop a method for predicting FMDV epitopes using existing crystallographic structures of FMDV. These techniques were validated by the use of reverse genetics, which confirmed the impact on cross reactivity of two predicted novel serotype O antigenic residues, with a further four novel residues identified by looking in depth at the interactions between two genetically close, but antigenically distant viruses. This increased knowledge of the antigenic composition of serotype O FMDV contributes to our understanding of the nature of vaccine efficacy and the breadth of protection, which, in the longer term, will aid in the goal of developing vaccines to better protect livestock from such a highly antigenically variable disease.