[The severe flu season of 2017-2018: making a case for the vaccination of healthcare professionals].

The 2017/2018 influenza season was severe and lasted twice as long as usual. Hospitals struggled to meet the demand for care. In addition to a high number of patients with flu and its complications, other factors played a role.

No novel coronaviruses identified in a large collection of human nasopharyngeal specimens using family-wide CODEHOP-based primers.

Novel viruses might be responsible for numerous disease cases with unknown etiology. In this study, we screened 1800 nasopharyngeal samples from adult outpatients with respiratory disease symptoms and healthy individuals. We employed a reverse transcription (RT)-PCR assay and CODEHOP-based primers (CT12-mCODEHOP) previously developed to recognize known and unknown corona- and toroviruses.

Organ tropism of murine coronavirus does not correlate with the expression levels of the membrane-anchored or secreted isoforms of the carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule 1 receptor.

Carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule 1 (CEACAM1) is the sole known receptor of murine hepatitis virus (MHV) A59, but the available, often qualitative, data about CEACAM1 expression does not explain MHV organ tropism. Ceacam1 transcripts undergo alternative splicing resulting in multiple isoforms, including secreted CEACAM1 isoforms that can neutralize the virus. We determined the quantities of Ceacam1 transcripts encoding membrane-bound and secreted isoforms in mouse organs and a set of cell lines.

Design and validation of consensus-degenerate hybrid oligonucleotide primers for broad and sensitive detection of corona- and toroviruses.

The ssRNA+ family Coronaviridae includes two subfamilies prototyped by coronaviruses and toroviruses that cause respiratory and enteric infections. To facilitate the identification of new distantly related members of the family Coronaviridae, we have developed a molecular assay with broad specificity. The consensus-degenerated hybrid oligonucleotide primer (CODEHOP) strategy was modified to design primers targeting the most conserved motifs in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase locus.

Mass spectrometry-based comparative sequencing to detect ganciclovir resistance in the UL97 gene of human cytomegalovirus.

Background: Persistent infections with herpesviruses such as human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) frequently occur after solid organ or stem cell transplantation, and are due to either failure of the host to immunologically control the virus or emerging resistance of the virus to the antiviral drug(s) used. Antiviral therapy can be guided by viral drug susceptibility testing based on screening for known resistance-inducing mutations in the viral genome. Mass spectrometry-based comparative sequence analysis (MSCSA) might be advantageous for this purpose because of its suitability for semi-automation.