Experimental transmission of avian-like swine H1N1 influenza virus between immunologically naïve and vaccinated pigs.

Background: Infection of pigs with swine influenza has been studied experimentally and in the field; however, little information is available on the natural transmission of this virus in pigs. Two studies in an experimental transmission model are presented here, one in immunologically naïve and one in a combination of vaccinated and naïve pigs.

Objectives: To investigate the transmission of a recent 'avian-like' swine H1N1 influenza virus in naive piglets, to assess the antibody response to a commercially available vaccine and to determine the efficiency of transmission in pigs after vaccination.

Expression of the Arabidopsis Xrn4p 5'-3' exoribonuclease facilitates degradation of tombusvirus RNA and promotes rapid emergence of viral variants in plants.

Rapid RNA virus evolution is a major problem due to the devastating diseases caused by human, animal and plant-pathogenic RNA viruses. A previous genome-wide screen for host factors affecting recombination in Tomato bushy stunt tombusvirus (TBSV), a small monopartite plant virus, identified Xrn1p 5'-3' exoribonuclease of yeast, a model host, whose absence led to increased appearance of recombinants [Serviene, E., Shapka, N.

Intracellularly grown gold nanoparticles as potential surface-enhanced Raman scattering probes.

Gold nanoparticles grown within the intracellular confines of living cells are introduced as potential surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates for confocal Raman spectrometry. Electron microscopy and a silver-enhanced reflectance laser scanning confocal microscopic approach were used to visualize the size, shape, and distribution of intracellularly grown gold nanoparticles (IGAuN) as small as 1 nm. Passive uptake as the conventional approach for delivering nanoparticles inside cells faces the insurmountable challenge of escaping the endosomal/lysosomal pathway.

Exploiting alternative subcellular location for replication: tombusvirus replication switches to the endoplasmic reticulum in the absence of peroxisomes.

Plus-strand RNA virus replication takes place on distinct membranous surfaces in infected cells via the assembly of viral replicase complexes involving multiple viral and host proteins. One group of tombusviruses, such as Tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV), replicate on the surfaces of peroxisomal membranes in plant and yeast cells. Surprisingly, previous genome-wide screen performed in yeast demonstrated that a TBSV replicon RNA replicated as efficiently in yeast defective in peroxisome biogenesis as in the wt yeast (Panavas et al.

Restriction analysis of genetic variability of Polish isolates of Tomato black ring virus.

Several different isolates of Tomato black ring virus (TBRV) have been collected in Poland from cucumber, tomato, potato and black locust plants. Biological tests showed some differences in the range of infected plants and the type of symptoms, which was the basis for selection of seven the most biologically different TBRV isolates. According to the sequence of TBRV-MJ, several primer pairs were designed and almost the entire sequence of both genomic RNAs was amplified.