The Contribution of Viruses to the Structure of Acute Respiratory Diseases in the Population of Yakutsk in 2019-2020

The aim of the study was to identify the viral etiology of acute respiratory diseases in patients hospitalized to the infectious hospitals in Yakutsk. Methods: nasal and pharyngeal swabs were obtained from the examined patients. The presence of the genetic material of the respiratory viruses was determined by real-time PCR. Results: During the study, 178 patients admitted to the infectious hospitals in Yakutsk from November 2019 to April 2020 were selected according to the inclusion criteria. 99/178 (55.6%) samples were positive for at least one of the studied viruses, 79/178 (44.4%) samples were negative. Respiratory syncytial virus;rhinoviruses;metapneumovirus;parainfluenza viruses of types 1, 2, 3 and 4;coronaviruses NL-63, 229E, HKU-1 and OC-43;adenoviruses groups B, C and E;bokavirus, as well as influenza A and influenza B viruses were identified. The results of the study are necessary to improve and optimize diagnostic tactics, for control and prevention of respiratory viral infections.

Tackling the Future Pandemics: Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Agents (BSAAs) Based on A-Type Proanthocyanidins.

A-type proanthocyanidins (PAC-As) are plant-derived natural polyphenols that occur as oligomers or polymers of flavan-3-ol monomers, such as (+)-catechin and (-)-epicatechin, connected through an unusual double A linkage. PAC-As are present in leaves, seeds, flowers, bark, and fruits of many plants, and are thought to exert protective natural roles against microbial pathogens, insects, and herbivores. Consequently, when tested in isolation, PAC-As have shown several biological effects, through antioxidant, antibacterial, immunomodulatory, and antiviral activities. PAC-As have been observed in fact to inhibit replication of many different human viruses, and both enveloped and non-enveloped DNA and RNA viruses proved sensible to their inhibitory effect. Mechanistic studies revealed that PAC-As cause reduction of infectivity of viral particles they come in contact with, as a result of their propensity to interact with virion surface capsid proteins or envelope glycoproteins essential for viral attachment and entry. As viral infections and new virus outbreaks are a major public health concern, development of effective Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Agents (BSAAs) that can be rapidly deployable even against future emerging viruses is an urgent priority. This review summarizes the antiviral activities and mechanism of action of PAC-As, and their potential to be deployed as BSAAs against present and future viral infections.

Viral Infectivity Inhibition and Viral Biological Elements Destruction using Safe and Low Power Electrons Generated by Life Restoration Device (LRD): An In Vitro Study

Background: Recently, different side effects have been observed after using antiviral drugs before activation of the immune system. Therefore, it is very important to use effective and non-invasive therapy with fewer side effects for infected virus treatment. Method(s): In this study, we designated a new device termed a Life Restoration Device (LRD). The main function of LRD is to generate electric frequencies with lower and safer potential. These frequencies can effectively destroy the biological elements in the viruses, such as nucleic acid materials and viral cell membranes, but not the cellular plasma membrane of the infected eukaryotic cells. Result(s): A designated glass tube was prepared for this purpose. The infected cell culture was located in the cell culture media, and propagated viruses were poured into the glass tube. Additionally, two nickel-coated copper rods were inserted into both ends of the tube inside the cell culture media. Afterward, the two nickel-coated copper rods were connected to the LRD. Using LRD, lower potential electric frequencies were generated and applied for 30 min and 60 min time points. The treatment of the cell culture containing MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 with LRD for 30 min significantly reduced the viral infectivity by 83% and 22%, respectively. After 60 min of treatment with LRD, the infectivity of MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 viruses was reduced by 21% and 1%, respectively. Furthermore, HIV and HBV-infected blood showed a 95.5% and 100% viral inhibition rate after 2 h exposure to LRD. Additionally, based on the results of the electron microscopy of treated H5N1 virus and western blot analysis data of different types of viruses, the nucleic acid components of the treated viruses were reduced compared to the non-treated viruses. The low-power electric frequencies produced by LRD can reduce the fluidity and osmosis of the viral envelope but not the plasma membrane of the infected cells. Conclusion(s): Treatment of different types of pathogenic viruses with electric stimulation produced by LRD is a new alternative to safe therapy but needs further investigations. The results of this study are important to develop an effective, safe, and alternative viral therapy. Copyright © 2022 Bentham Science Publishers.

The contribution of bovines to human health against viral infections.

In the last 40 years, novel viruses have evolved at a much faster pace than other pathogens. Viral diseases pose a significant threat to public health around the world. Bovines have a longstanding history of significant contributions to human nutrition, agricultural, industrial purposes, medical research, drug and vaccine development, and livelihood. The life cycle, genomic structures, viral proteins, and pathophysiology of bovine viruses studied in vitro paved the way for understanding the human counterparts. Calf model has been used for testing vaccines against RSV, papillomavirus vaccines and anti-HCV agents were principally developed after using the BPV and BVDV model, respectively. Some bovine viruses-based vaccines (BPIV-3 and bovine rotaviruses) were successfully developed, clinically tried, and commercially produced. Cows, immunized with HIV envelope glycoprotein, produced effective broadly neutralizing antibodies in their serum and colostrum against HIV. Here, we have summarized a few examples of human viral infections for which the use of bovines has contributed to the acquisition of new knowledge to improve human health against viral infections covering the convergence between some human and bovine viruses and using bovines as disease models. Additionally, the production of vaccines and drugs, bovine-based products were covered, and the precautions in dealing with bovines and bovine-based materials.

A framework for predicting variable-length epitopes of human-adapted viruses using machine learning methods.

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has alerted people of the threat caused by viruses. Vaccine is the most effective way to prevent the disease from spreading. The interaction between antibodies and antigens will clear the infectious organisms from the host. Identifying B-cell epitopes is critical in vaccine design, development of disease diagnostics and antibody production. However, traditional experimental methods to determine epitopes are time-consuming and expensive, and the predictive performance using the existing in silico methods is not satisfactory. This paper develops a general framework to predict variable-length linear B-cell epitopes specific for human-adapted viruses with machine learning approaches based on Protvec representation of peptides and physicochemical properties of amino acids. QR decomposition is incorporated during the embedding process that enables our models to handle variable-length sequences. Experimental results on large immune epitope datasets validate that our proposed model's performance is superior to the state-of-the-art methods in terms of AUROC (0.827) and AUPR (0.831) on the testing set. Moreover, sequence analysis also provides the results of the viral category for the corresponding predicted epitopes with high precision. Therefore, this framework is shown to reliably identify linear B-cell epitopes of human-adapted viruses given protein sequences and could provide assistance for potential future pandemics and epidemics.

Host Sex Steroids Interact With Virus Infection: New Insights Into Sex Disparity in Infectious Diseases.

Sex hormones are steroid hormones synthesized from the gonads of animals and tissues such as the placenta and adrenocortical reticular zone. The physiological functions of sex hormones are complex. Sex hormones are not only pathologically correlated with many diseases of the reproductive system, but are etiological factors in some viral infectious diseases, including disease caused by infections of coronaviruses, herpesviruses, hepatitis viruses, and other kinds of human viruses, which either exhibit a male propensity in clinical practice, or crosstalk with androgen receptor (AR)-related pathways in viral pathogenesis. Due to the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the role of androgen/AR in viral infectious disease is highlighted again, majorly representing by the recent advances of AR-responsive gene of transmembrane protease/serine subfamily member 2 (TMPRSS2), which proteolytically activates the receptor-mediated virus entry by many coronaviruses and influenza virus, along with the role of androgen-mediated signaling for the transcription of hepatitis B virus (HBV), and the role of sex hormone responsive genes during Zika virus (ZIKV) pathogenesis, et al. Collectively, we propose to provide a comprehensive overview of the role of male sex hormones during multiple phases in the life cycle of different human viruses, which may be partly responsible for the sex-specific prevalence, severity and mortality of some diseases, therefore, may provide clues to develop more efficient prevention and treatment strategies for high-risk populations.

SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in soil: An environmental outlook.

In the present review, the authors shed light on the SARS-CoV-2 impact, persistence, and monitoring in the soil environment. With this purpose, several aspects have been deepened: i) viruses in soil ecosystems; ii) direct and indirect impact on the soil before and after the pandemic, and iii) methods for quantification of viruses and SARS-CoV-2 monitoring in soil. Viruses are present in soil (i.e. up to 417 × 107 viruses per g TS-1 in wetlands) and can affect the behavior and ecology of other life forms (e.g. bacteria), which are remarkably important for maintaining environmental equilibrium. Also, SARS-CoV-2 can be found in soil (i.e. up to 550 copies·g-1). Considering that the SARS-CoV-2 is very recent, poor knowledge is available in the literature on persistence in the soil and reference has been made to coronaviruses and other families of viruses. For instance, the survival of enveloped viruses (e.g. SARS-CoV) can reach 90 days in soils with 10% of moisture content at ambient. In such a context, the possible spread of the SARS-CoV-2 in the soil was evaluated by analyzing the possible contamination routes.

Antiviral adsorption activity of porous silicon nanoparticles against different pathogenic human viruses.

New viral infections, due to their rapid spread, lack of effective antiviral drugs and vaccines, kill millions of people every year. The global pandemic SARS-CoV-2 in 2019-2021 has shown that new strains of viruses can widespread very quickly, causing disease and death, with significant socio-economic consequences. Therefore, the search for new methods of combating different pathogenic viruses is an urgent task, and strategies based on nanoparticles are of significant interest. This work demonstrates the antiviral adsorption (virucidal) efficacy of nanoparticles of porous silicon (PSi NPs) against various enveloped and non-enveloped pathogenic human viruses, such as Influenza A virus, Poliovirus, Human immunodeficiency virus, West Nile virus, and Hepatitis virus. PSi NPs sized 60 nm with the average pore diameter of 2 nm and specific surface area of 200 m2/g were obtained by ball-milling of electrochemically-etched microporous silicon films. After interaction with PSi NPs, a strong suppression of the infectious activity of the virus-contaminated fluid was observed, which was manifested in a decrease in the infectious titer of all studied types of viruses by approximately 104 times, and corresponded to an inactivation of 99.99% viruses in vitro. This sorption capacity of PSi NPs is possible due to their microporous structure and huge specific surface area, which ensures efficient capture of virions, as confirmed by ELISA analysis, dynamic light scattering measurements and transmission electron microscopy images. The results obtained indicate the great potential of using PSi NPs as universal viral sorbents and disinfectants for the detection and treatment of viral diseases.

Advanced Material Against Human (Including Covid-19) and Plant Viruses: Nanoparticles As a Feasible Strategy.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak revealed that these nano-pathogens have the ability to rapidly change lives. Undoubtedly, SARS-CoV-2 as well as other viruses can cause important global impacts, affecting public health, as well as, socioeconomic development. But viruses are not only a public health concern, they are also a problem in agriculture. The current treatments are often ineffective, are prone to develop resistance, or cause considerable adverse side effects. The use of nanotechnology has played an important role to combat viral diseases. In this review three main aspects are in focus: first, the potential use of nanoparticles as carriers for drug delivery. Second, its use for treatments of some human viral diseases, and third, its application as antivirals in plants. With these three themes, the aim is to give to readers an overview of the progress in this promising area of biotechnology during the 2017-2020 period, and to provide a glance at how tangible is the effectiveness of nanotechnology against viruses. Future prospects are also discussed. It is hoped that this review can be a contribution to general knowledge for both specialized and non-specialized readers, allowing a better knowledge of this interesting topic.