Phenome-wide analysis reveals epistatic associations between APOL1 variants and chronic kidney disease and multiple other disorders.

Background: APOL1 variants G1 and G2 are common in populations with recent African ancestry. They are associated with protection from African sleeping sickness, however homozygosity or compound heterozygosity for these variants is associated with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and related conditions. What is not clear is the extent of associations with non-kidney-related disorders, and whether there are clusters of diseases associated with individual APOL1 genotypes.

SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence at urban and rural sites in Kaduna State, Nigeria, during October/November 2021, immediately prior to detection of the Omicron variant.

Background: Nigeria is Africa's most populated country. By November 2021 it had experienced three waves of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Peer-reviewed seroprevalence data assessing the proportion of the Nigerian population that have been infected were extremely limited.

Distemper, extinction, and vaccination of the Amur tiger.

Canine distemper virus (CDV) has recently emerged as an extinction threat for the endangered Amur tiger (). CDV is vaccine-preventable, and control strategies could require vaccination of domestic dogs and/or wildlife populations. However, vaccination of endangered wildlife remains controversial, which has led to a focus on interventions in domestic dogs, often assumed to be the source of infection.

Comparison of Next-Generation Sequencing Technologies for Comprehensive Assessment of Full-Length Hepatitis C Viral Genomes.

Affordable next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies for hepatitis C virus (HCV) may potentially identify both viral genotype and resistance genetic motifs in the era of directly acting antiviral (DAA) therapies. This study compared the ability of high-throughput NGS methods to generate full-length, deep, HCV sequence data sets and evaluated their utility for diagnostics and clinical assessment. NGS methods using (i) unselected HCV RNA (metagenomics), (ii) preenrichment of HCV RNA by probe capture, and (iii) HCV preamplification by PCR implemented in four United Kingdom centers were compared.

Longevity and determinants of protective humoral immunity after pandemic influenza infection.

Rationale: Antibodies to influenza hemagglutinin are the primary correlate of protection against infection. The strength and persistence of this immune response influences viral evolution and consequently the nature of influenza epidemics. However, the durability and immune determinants of induction of humoral immunity after primary influenza infection remain unclear.

Accumulation of human-adapting mutations during circulation of A(H1N1)pdm09 influenza virus in humans in the United Kingdom.

Unlabelled: The influenza pandemic that emerged in 2009 provided an unprecedented opportunity to study adaptation of a virus recently acquired from an animal source during human transmission. In the United Kingdom, the novel virus spread in three temporally distinct waves between 2009 and 2011. Phylogenetic analysis of complete viral genomes showed that mutations accumulated over time.

Incidence of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 infection, United Kingdom, 2009-2011.

We conducted a longitudinal community cohort study of healthy adults in the UK. We found significantly higher incidence of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 infection in 2010-11 than in 2009-10, a substantial proportion of subclinical infection, and higher risk for infection during 2010-11 among persons with lower preinfection antibody titers.

Cellular immune correlates of protection against symptomatic pandemic influenza.

The role of T cells in mediating heterosubtypic protection against natural influenza illness in humans is uncertain. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic (pH1N1) provided a unique natural experiment to determine whether crossreactive cellular immunity limits symptomatic illness in antibody-naive individuals. We followed 342 healthy adults through the UK pandemic waves and correlated the responses of pre-existing T cells to the pH1N1 virus and conserved core protein epitopes with clinical outcomes after incident pH1N1 infection.

Mutational analysis of the herpes simplex virus triplex protein VP19C.

Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) capsids have an icosahedral structure with capsomers formed by the major capsid protein, VP5, linked in groups of three by distinctive structures called triplexes. Triplexes are heterotrimers formed by two proteins in a 1:2 stoichiometry. The single-copy protein is called VP19C, and the dimeric protein is VP23.