Recombinant expression systems for production of stabilised virus-like particles as next-generation polio vaccines.

Polioviruses have caused crippling disease in humans for centuries, prior to the successful development of vaccines in the mid-1900's, which dramatically reduced disease prevalence. Continued use of these vaccines, however, threatens ultimate disease eradication and achievement of a polio-free world. Virus-like particles (VLPs) that lack a viral genome represent a safer potential vaccine, although they require particle stabilization.

The pseudoknot region and poly-(C) tract comprise an essential RNA packaging signal for assembly of foot-and-mouth disease virus.

Virus assembly is a crucial step for the completion of the viral replication cycle. In addition to ensuring efficient incorporation of viral genomes into nascent virions, high specificity is required to prevent incorporation of host nucleic acids. For picornaviruses, including FMDV, the mechanisms required to fulfil these requirements are not well understood.

An appreciation of the seminal contributions of John Brooksby and Fred Brown on foot and mouth disease.

John Brooksby was an outstanding Scottish veterinary virologist who worked at the Pirbright Institute (Pirbright) for 40 years, including 16 as the institute's director. He devised quantitative methods for measuring neutralising antibodies and perfected a complement fixation test for the diagnosis, typing and strain differentiation of foot and mouth disease (FMD), especially when combined with neutralisation. He identified four of the seven types of FMD virus (FMDV) and many subtypes.

Mechanism of enterovirus VP0 maturation cleavage based on the structure of a stabilised assembly intermediate.

Molecular details of genome packaging are little understood for the majority of viruses. In enteroviruses (EVs), cleavage of the structural protein VP0 into VP4 and VP2 is initiated by the incorporation of RNA into the assembling virion and is essential for infectivity. We have applied a combination of bioinformatic, molecular and structural approaches to generate the first high-resolution structure of an intermediate in the assembly pathway, termed a provirion, which contains RNA and intact VP0.

Optimisation of Convolution-Based Image Lightness Processing.

In the convolutional retinex approach to image lightness processing, an image is filtered by a centre/surround operator that is designed to mitigate the effects of shading (illumination gradients), which in turn compresses the dynamic range. Typically, the parameters that define the shape and extent of the filter are tuned to provide visually pleasing results, and a mapping function such as a logarithm is included for further image enhancement. In contrast, a statistical approach to convolutional retinex has recently been introduced, which is based upon known or estimated autocorrelation statistics of the image albedo and shading components.