Awarded grant in 2008
Cellular and Viral Determinants of Neonatal Group B
Coxsackievirus Myocarditis
“Sequence comparisons of more recently circulating CVB1 and CVB3 virus 5’UTR and stemloop 2 folding patterns reveal that more recently circulating CVB1 and CVB3 viruses are more similar to each other than to their prototype viruses from the 1940’s. The area of highest divergence from protoype of each CVB was within the stemloop 2 structure, which has previously been identified as a genomic determinant in CVB cardiovirulence [11]; this may indicate why the newer strain of CVB1 was more cardiovirulent than ever described previously. This new CVB1-Chi07 also has larger plaque size than CVB1-Conn5 which correlates with a higher viral replication and titer [12]. The CVB1-Chi07 shows a slower rate of growth and lower peak titer than all of the CVB3 viruses assessed. In vitro mouse models to compare these CVB1 viruses have been initiated with one experiment which indicates that CVB1-Chi07 is much more virulent than CVB1-Conn5, however further studies and data will be collected to verify this.
IRES transactivating protein identification is preliminary at this time, but the three proteins that have been identified are involved in cellular translation. Further studies of confirmation are underway and future experiments will be performed with mouse myocyte proteins.“
