scholarly journals Exacerbation of Influenza A Virus Disease Severity by Respiratory Syncytial Virus Co-Infection in a Mouse Model

Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1630 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junu A. George ◽  
Shaikha H. AlShamsi ◽  
Maryam H. Alhammadi ◽  
Ahmed R. Alsuwaidi

Influenza A virus (IAV) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are leading causes of childhood infections. RSV and influenza are competitive in vitro. In this study, the in vivo effects of RSV and IAV co-infection were investigated. Mice were intranasally inoculated with RSV, with IAV, or with both viruses (RSV+IAV and IAV+RSV) administered sequentially, 24 h apart. On days 3 and 7 post-infection, lung tissues were processed for viral loads and immune cell populations. Lung functions were also evaluated. Mortality was observed only in the IAV+RSV group (50% of mice did not survive beyond 7 days). On day 3, the viral loads in single-infected and co-infected mice were not significantly different. However, on day 7, the IAV titer was much higher in the IAV+RSV group, and the RSV viral load was reduced. CD4 T cells were reduced in all groups on day 7 except in single-infected mice. CD8 T cells were higher in all experimental groups except the RSV-alone group. Increased airway resistance and reduced thoracic compliance were demonstrated in both co-infected groups. This model indicates that, among all the infection types we studied, infection with IAV followed by RSV is associated with the highest IAV viral loads and the most morbidity and mortality.

Viruses ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1171
Author(s):  
Yaron Drori ◽  
Jasmine Jacob-Hirsch ◽  
Rakefet Pando ◽  
Aharona Glatman-Freedman ◽  
Nehemya Friedman ◽  
...  

Influenza viruses and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are respiratory viruses that primarily circulate worldwide during the autumn and winter seasons. Seasonal surveillance has shown that RSV infection generally precedes influenza. However, in the last four winter seasons (2016–2020) an overlap of the morbidity peaks of both viruses was observed in Israel, and was paralleled by significantly lower RSV infection rates. To investigate whether the influenza A virus inhibits RSV, human cervical carcinoma (HEp2) cells or mice were co-infected with influenza A and RSV. Influenza A inhibited RSV growth, both in vitro and in vivo. Mass spectrometry analysis of mouse lungs infected with influenza A identified a two-wave pattern of protein expression upregulation, which included members of the interferon-induced protein with the tetratricopeptide (IFITs) family. Interestingly, in the second wave, influenza A viruses were no longer detectable in mouse lungs. In addition, knockdown and overexpression of IFITs in HEp2 cells affected RSV multiplicity. In conclusion, influenza A infection inhibits RSV infectivity via upregulation of IFIT proteins in a two-wave modality. Understanding the immune system involvement in the interaction between influenza A and RSV viruses will contribute to the development of future treatment strategies against these viruses.


2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (18) ◽  
pp. 9790-9800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy A. Jewell ◽  
Negin Vaghefi ◽  
Sara E. Mertz ◽  
Parvis Akter ◽  
R. Stokes Peebles ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTType I interferon (IFN) induction is an immediate response to virus infection, and very high levels of these cytokines are produced when the Toll-like receptors (TLRs) expressed at high levels by plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) are triggered by viral nucleic acids. Unlike many RNA viruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) does not appear to activate pDCs through their TLRs and it is not clear how this difference affects IFN-α/β induction in vivo. In this study, we investigated type I IFN production triggered by RSV or influenza A virus infection of BALB/c mice and found that while both viruses induced IFN-α/β production by pDCs in vitro, only influenza virus infection could stimulate type I IFN synthesis by pDCs in vivo. In situ hybridization studies demonstrated that the infected respiratory epithelium was a major source of IFN-α/β in response to either infection, but in pDC-depleted animals only type I IFN induction by influenza virus was impaired.


Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Joanne Haney ◽  
Kieran Dee ◽  
Colin Loney ◽  
Swetha Vijayakrishnan ◽  
Pablo R. Murcia

Influenza A virus (IAV) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are important respiratory pathogens that share common epidemiological features and cellular tropism within the respiratory tract. This gives rise to the potential for biological interactions between IAV and RSV during coinfection of hosts. Virus–virus interactions are increasingly recognised for their contribution to viral dynamics during infection, however, the molecular processes underpinning these interactions are unknown. Here, we developed an in vitro coinfection system to characterise the infection dynamics of IAV (A/Puerto Rico/8/34, H1N1) and RSV (A2) in single virus infection or coinfection in lung epithelial cells, with the aim to identify biological processes that drive virus–virus interactions during coinfection. We compared viral replication kinetics at different multiplicities of infection and observed that RSV replication was inhibited during coinfection with IAV, whilst IAV replication was facilitated by coinfection. To further characterise IAV/RSV interactions, we determined the relative proportions of single virus infected or coinfected cells during early and late timepoints post-infection and observed differences in expression of viral proteins between single and coinfected states. Additionally, cell viability was measured determine differences in viral-induced cytopathic effect. Compared with RSV infection, cell death is induced at earlier timepoints post IAV infection and coinfection, indicating that different cellular processes are initiated in response to infection. These studies highlight that both competitive and facilitative ecological interactions occur between IAV and RSV during coinfection and shed light on sources of potential interactions at the cellular and molecular level.


Author(s):  
Daniel Blanco-Melo ◽  
Benjamin E. Nilsson-Payant ◽  
Wen-Chun Liu ◽  
Rasmus Møller ◽  
Maryline Panis ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTOne of the greatest threats to humanity is the emergence of a pandemic virus. Among those with the greatest potential for such an event include influenza viruses and coronaviruses. In the last century alone, we have observed four major influenza A virus pandemics as well as the emergence of three highly pathogenic coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As no effective antiviral treatments or vaccines are presently available against SARS-CoV-2, it is important to understand the host response to this virus as this may guide the efforts in development towards novel therapeutics. Here, we offer the first in-depth characterization of the host transcriptional response to SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory infections through in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo model systems. Our data demonstrate the each virus elicits both core antiviral components as well as unique transcriptional footprints. Compared to the response to influenza A virus and respiratory syncytial virus, SARS-CoV-2 elicits a muted response that lacks robust induction of a subset of cytokines including the Type I and Type III interferons as well as a numerous chemokines. Taken together, these data suggest that the unique transcriptional signature of this virus may be responsible for the development of COVID-19.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather D. Hickman ◽  
Jacqueline W. Mays ◽  
James Gibbs ◽  
Ivan Kosik ◽  
Javier Magadan ◽  
...  

AbstractTo probe the limits of CD8+ T cell immunosurveillance, we inserted the model peptide SIINFEKL into influenza A virus (IAV) negative strand gene segments. Although IAV genomic RNA is widely considered as non-coding, there is a conserved, relatively long open reading frame present in the genomic strand of segment eight, encoding a potential protein termed NEG8. The biosynthesis of NEG8 from IAV has yet to be demonstrated. While we failed to detect NEG8 protein expression in IAV infected cells, cell surface Kb-SIINFEKL complexes are generated when SIINFEKL is genetically appended to the predicted COOH-terminus of NEG8, as shown by activation of OT-I T cells in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, recombinant IAV encoding SIINFEKL embedded in the negative strand of the NA-stalk coding sequence also activates OT-I T cells in vivo. Together, our findings demonstrate both the translation of sequences on the negative strand of a single stranded RNA virus and its relevance anti-viral immunosurveillance.SignificanceEvery gene encodes complementary information on the opposite strand that can potentially be used for immunosurveillance. In this study, we show that the influenza A virus “non-coding” strand translated into polypeptides during a viral infection of either cultured cells or mice that can be recognized by CD8+ T cells. Our findings raise the possibility that influenza virus uses its negative strand to generate proteins useful to the virus. More generally, it adds to a growing literature showing that immunosurveillance extends to gene sequences generally thought not to be converted into proteins. The relevance of translating this “dark” information extends from viral immunity to cancer immunotherapy and autoimmunity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  

Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is the major cause of the lower respiratory tract illness (RTI) in the elderly and in immunocompromised patients and children under 5 years of age. The disease causes deaths of approximately 500 infants each year. Conventional vaccine against the disease demonstrated immunological pitfalls to enhance T-helper responses and developed non-neutralising antibodies. This study aimed to predict epitopes from the fusion F protein of SRV that elicit the immune system and acted as safer efficacious vaccine. A total of 199 strains of RSV were retrieved from the NCBI database. The immune epitope database analysis resources (IEDB) were used for epitopes prediction against B and T cells. The population coverage was also calculated for the proposed epitopes against the whole world. Only two epitopes (441-YVSNK-445 and 440-DYVS-443) successfully passed all B cell prediction tools and demonstrated higher score in Emini and Kolaskar and tongaonker software. Thus were proposed as B cells epitopes. For T cells, a total of 177 epitopes were found to interact with MHC-I alleles. Among them four epitopes (53-YTSVITIEL-61; 250-YMLTNSELL-258, 198-YIDKQLLPI-206, and 450-VSVGNTLYY-458) were proposed since they interacted with the highest number of alleles and the best binding affinity to MHC-1 alleles. Moreover, a total of 397 core epitopes were found to interact with MHC-П alleles. However, the best four core proposed epitopes that interacted with higher number of MHC-II alleles were 217-IETVIEFQQ-226; 250-YMLTNSELL-258; 477-FYDPLVFPS-485 and 505-FIRKSDELL-513. Strikingly the epitope 250-YMLTNSELL-258 successfully interacted with both MHC-1and MHC-П alleles. The population coverage was 48.61% and 99.64% for MHC-I and MHC-II epitopes, respectively, and 100% for all T cells epitopes. Taken together ten epitopes successfully proposed as vaccine candidate against RSV. In vivo and in vitro clinical trials studies are required to elucidate the effectiveness of these epitopes as vaccine.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li-Nan Wang ◽  
Xiang-Lei Peng ◽  
Min Xu ◽  
Yuan-Bo Zheng ◽  
Yue-Ying Jiao ◽  
...  

AbstractHuman respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is the leading cause of lower respiratory tract illness (LRTI), and no vaccine against LRTI has proven to be safe and effective in infants. Our study assessed attenuated recombinant RSVs as vaccine candidates to prevent RSV infection in mice. The constructed recombinant plasmids harbored (5′ to 3′) a T7 promoter, hammerhead ribozyme, RSV Long strain antigenomic cDNA with cold-passaged (cp) mutations or cp combined with temperature-sensitive attenuated mutations from the A2 strain (A2cpts) or further combined with SH gene deletion (A2cptsΔSH), HDV ribozyme (δ), and a T7 terminator. These vectors were subsequently co-transfected with four helper plasmids encoding N, P, L, and M2-1 viral proteins into BHK/T7-9 cells, and the recovered viruses were then passaged in Vero cells. The rescued recombinant RSVs (rRSVs) were named rRSV-Long/A2cp, rRSV-Long/A2cpts, and rRSV-Long/A2cptsΔSH, respectively, and stably passaged in vitro, without reversion to wild type (wt) at sites containing introduced mutations or deletion. Although rRSV-Long/A2cpts and rRSV-Long/A2cptsΔSH displayed  temperature-sensitive (ts) phenotype in vitro and in vivo, all rRSVs were significantly attenuated in vivo. Furthermore, BALB/c mice immunized with rRSVs produced Th1-biased immune response, resisted wtRSV infection, and were free from enhanced respiratory disease. We showed that the combination of ΔSH with attenuation (att) mutations of cpts contributed to improving att phenotype, efficacy, and gene stability of rRSV. By successfully introducing att mutations and SH gene deletion into the RSV Long parent and producing three rRSV strains, we have laid an important foundation for the development of RSV live attenuated vaccines.


Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 234
Author(s):  
Sarah Al-Beltagi ◽  
Cristian Alexandru Preda ◽  
Leah V. Goulding ◽  
Joe James ◽  
Juan Pu ◽  
...  

The long-term control strategy of SARS-CoV-2 and other major respiratory viruses needs to include antivirals to treat acute infections, in addition to the judicious use of effective vaccines. Whilst COVID-19 vaccines are being rolled out for mass vaccination, the modest number of antivirals in use or development for any disease bears testament to the challenges of antiviral development. We recently showed that non-cytotoxic levels of thapsigargin (TG), an inhibitor of the sarcoplasmic/endoplasmic reticulum (ER) Ca2+ ATPase pump, induces a potent host innate immune antiviral response that blocks influenza A virus replication. Here we show that TG is also highly effective in blocking the replication of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), common cold coronavirus OC43, SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A virus in immortalized or primary human cells. TG’s antiviral performance was significantly better than remdesivir and ribavirin in their respective inhibition of OC43 and RSV. Notably, TG was just as inhibitory to coronaviruses (OC43 and SARS-CoV-2) and influenza viruses (USSR H1N1 and pdm 2009 H1N1) in separate infections as in co-infections. Post-infection oral gavage of acid-stable TG protected mice against a lethal influenza virus challenge. Together with its ability to inhibit the different viruses before or during active infection, and with an antiviral duration of at least 48 h post-TG exposure, we propose that TG (or its derivatives) is a promising broad-spectrum inhibitor against SARS-CoV-2, OC43, RSV and influenza virus.


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