Chikungunya fever is a mosquito-borne viral illness characterized by a sudden onset of fever associated with joint pains. It was first described in the 1950s during a Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) outbreak in southern Tanzania and has since (re-) emerged and spread to several other geographical areas, reaching large populations and causing massive epidemics. In recent years, CHIKV has gained considerable attention due to its quick spread to the Caribbean and then in the Americas, with many cases reported between 2014 and 2017.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEmerging and re-emerging viral infections transmitted by insect vectors (arthopode-borne viruses, arbovirus) are a serious threat to global public health. Among them, yellow fever (YFV), dengue (DENV), chikungunya (CHIKV) and Zika (ZIKV) viruses are particularly important in tropical and subtropical regions. Although vector control is one of the most used prophylactic measures against arboviruses, it often faces obstacles, such as vector diversity, uncontrolled urbanization and increasing resistance to insecticides.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe open reading frame of a Brazilian bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) strain, IBSP4ncp, was recombined with the untranslated regions of the reference NADL strain by homologous recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, resulting in chimeric full-length cDNA clones of BVDV (chi-NADL/IBSP4ncp#2 and chi-NADL/IBSP4ncp#3). The recombinant clones were successfully recovered, resulting in viable viruses, having the kinetics of replication, focus size, and morphology similar to those of the parental virus, IBSP4ncp. In addition, the chimeric viruses remained stable for at least 10 passages in cell culture, maintaining their replication efficiency unaltered.
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