疾病及处理

Scrapie, as a disease of sheep and goats, has been recognized for over 300 yr and was first documented in England in 1730 (1). Sheep breeders petitioned the House of Commons of King George II in 1754 requesting the enforcing of regulations governing the sale and distribution of sheep This is believed to have ...

The basis of strain vartation in scrapie and other transmissible spongrform encephalopathies is a crucial issue in the ongoing debate about the nature of the infectious agent. The clear evidence for the existence of multiple strains leads us to conclude that these agents carry some form of str ...

The Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs), such as scrapre, BSE, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, are associated with alterations in the neural membrane protein or prion protein (PrP). This chapter will outline the gene targeting approaches that have been used to mutate the ...

Like conventrinal viruses, prion isolates exhibit distinctive, and often restricted host-ranges. However, the molecular events that shape the hostranges of these two classes of pathogen are dissimilar, reflecting their fundamentally different life cycles. As discussed by Rid ...

The pathogenesis of scrapie and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) appears to be based on the posttranslational conversion of the host’s protease-sensitive prion protein (PrP-sen or PrPc) to abnormal protease-resistant forms (PrP-res or PrPSc). In vitro st ...

Prion encephalopathies are neurodegenerative diseases characterized by the accumulation of abnormal isoforms of the prion protein (PrP) and the deposition of PrP amyloid in the central nervous systein (CNS) (1, 2) The diseasespecific PrP molecules are distinguishable froin their ...

Viral diseases were largely untreatable 40 yr ago. Now effective and safe therapies are available. This has led to significant improvements in the quality of life for large numbers of patients. New viral diseases are, however, continuing to emerge and established viruses have been shown to dev ...

In the laboratory it is important that potentially pathogenic agents be controlled to protect the laboratory worker from infection and the experiment from contamination. The operation of a safe laboratory depends on many factors: the training and judgement of laboratory personnel; t ...

The quality of cell cultures and their products is important in scientific research and is also critical where they are used for diagnosis and therapies. Fundamental aspects of quality of cell cultures are purity, correct identity, and freedom from adventitious agents as well as appropria ...

Approximately 5% of the world’s population has been infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). Ten percent of these adults will become chronic carriers, as will 95% of the infants infected perinatally. Those that do become chronically infected with HBV are at increased risk of developing liver dysf ...

Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) is a causative agent of both acute and chronic hepatitis, a major etiologic factor of primary hepatocellular carcinoma, and a serious global health problem, with over 240 million estimated chronically infected individuals. Although there are several promising ...

The duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV) genome contains a pol gene that codes for the viral polymerase protein. This enzyme, which is essential for the replication of the virus, has multiple activities including an RNA directed DNA polymerase or reverse transcriptase (RT) activity, an RNase H activit ...

Amajor reason for treatment failure during antiviral therapy of chronic hepatitis B infection is thought to be the persistence of the key replicative intermediate, the viral covalently closed circular (CCC) or supercoiled DNA (1,2). Investigators studying the structure and functi ...

Genomes of the hepatitis B viruses (HBVs) consist of approx 3.2 kb of partly double-stranded DNA containing three or four overlapping open reading frames, the largest of which encodes the viral polymerase (Pol) protein. After entry into the cell and uncoating, the viral genome is transported to t ...

Compared to the wide range of antibiotics that are available, the number of antiviral drugs is limited. However, herpesviruses have always been a major target for antiviral drug design, and there are a wide range of drugs at various stages of development. All of the assays described in this chapter pr ...

In this chapter, the development of a 96-well plate increasing signal helicase assay will be described. The authors have used this assay to detect inhibitors of hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3/4A RNA helicase.

Human herpesviruses 6 and 7 are ubiquitous herpesviruses that normally infect their hosts early in life. There are two variant groups of human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6): variants A (HHV-6A) and B (HHV-6B). Variant A has not been unambiguously associated with a specific disease but may contribute to di ...

Evaluation of antiviral agents against Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has been hampered by the lack of a permissive cell system for the replication of this virus. The extent of EBV replication detected in producer cell lines (P3HR-1 and B95-8) is limited: only a small fraction (

Herpesviruses encode a serine protease that is essential for the maturation of viral capsids (1,2). The protease is expressed as part of a polyprotein. The catalytic domain is contained within the N-terminal third of the protein, and the remainder comprises a structural “scaffold” protein. T ...

There is currently considerable interest in the possibility of developing a potent, nontoxic anti-HIV agent that could be used intravaginally to reduce the risks of transmission of HIV. Worldwide up to 80% of HIV infections have been acquired heterosexually. Projections suggest that by t ...