Publications by authors named "Lin-Hui Chung"
Article Synopsis
- Viral neutralization assays are important for evaluating immune responses and the effectiveness of vaccines or monoclonal antibodies, but traditional methods like FRNT require high-cost, biosafety level 3 facilities, limiting their use, especially for studying chikungunya virus (CHIKV).
- The study tested a safer surrogate virus neutralization test (sVNT) using CHIKV replicon particles (VRPs) that allows rapid detection and quantification of neutralizing antibodies in human serum, showing promising results.
- sVNT achieved 100% sensitivity and specificity in screening, with a strong correlation (Pearson's r = 0.83) with the traditional FRNT method, making it a reliable alternative for assessing neutralizing activity
Chikungunya fever is a mosquito-transmitted infectious disease that induces rash, myalgia, and persistent incapacitating arthralgia. At present, no vaccines or antiviral therapies specific to Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infection have been approved, and research is currently restricted to biosafety level 3 containment. CHIKV-like replicon particles (VRPs) are single-cycle infectious particles containing viral structure proteins, as well as a defective genome to provide a safe surrogate for living CHIKV to facilitate the testing of vaccines and antivirals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntigenicity and immunogenicity of chikungunya virus-like particles from mosquito cells.
Appl Microbiol Biotechnol
January 2023
The spread of chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is reaching pandemic levels, and vaccines and antivirals to control CHIKV infection have yet to be approved. Virus-like particles (VLPs), a self-assembled native multi-subunit protein structure, could potentially be used as an antigen for serological detection and vaccine development. In the current study, we describe the production of novel CHIKV VLPs from mosquitoes using a Baculovirus/Mosquito (BacMos) system in a simple Biosafety Level-2 laboratory.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReverse genetics is an important tool in the elucidation of viral replication and the development of countermeasures; however, these methods are impeded by laborious and inefficient replicon delivery methods. This paper demonstrates the use of a baculovirus to facilitate the efficient delivery of autonomous CHIKV replicons into mosquito and mammalian cells in vitro as well as adult mosquitoes in vivo. The efficacy of this approach was verified via co-localization among an eGFP reporter, nsP1, and dsRNA as well as through the inhibition of an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) null mutation (DDAA) in nsP4, or the treatment of a known antiviral compound (6-azauridine).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Nighttime environmental noise affects sleep quality. However, the effects of daytime occupational noise remain unclear.
Methods: A quasi-experiment of 48 participants who had been employed for at least six months in two hospital cafeterias.