Browsing by Subject "Virulence"

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    Pathogenicity assessment of wild-type and mouse-adapted influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses in comparison with highly pathogenic influenza A(H5N1) virus
    (Universidad de Murcia. Departamento de Biología Celular e Histología, 2017) Prokopyeva, E.A.; Romanovskaya, A.A.; Sharshov, K.A.; Zaykovskaya, A.V.; Alekseev, A. Yu.; Shestopalov, A.M.
    Here we compare the results of pathological and virological examinations of mice experimentally infected with either wild-type or mouse-adapted pandemic A(H1N1) pdm09 viruses and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus A(H5N1). Mice were sacrificed on days 1, 3, 6, and 10 post infection or whenever morbidity was severe enough to justify euthanasia. Morbidity rates were calculated on the basis of clinical signs (weight loss, poor hair coat, hunched posture and paresis); virus-induced disease was characterised by the histopathology of lung; virus dissemination was determined by virus isolation on organ samples of lung, brain, liver, kidney and spleen. All mice infected with mouse-adapted A(H1N1) pdm09 died in the course of the experiment, whereas 20% of animals survived the infection with A(H5N1). Echinocyte formation changed the rheological properties of blood in animals infected with either mouse-adapted A(H1N1) pdm09 or A(H5N1). To sum up, the adaptation of pandemic A(H1N1) pdm09 virus can confer an enhanced virulence similar to or even exceeding that of HPAI A(H5N1) virus.
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    Open Access
    Stable and reproducible homologous recombination enables CRISPR-based engineering in the fungus Rhizopus microsporus
    (Cell Press, 2021-12-20) Lax Molina, Carlos; Navarro Mendoza, María Isabel; Pérez Arques, Carlos; Navarro Ros, Eusebio; Nicolás Molina, Francisco Esteban; Garre Mula, Victoriano; Genética y Microbiología; Facultades de la UMU::Facultad de Biología
    Mucormycosis is a lethal and emerging disease that has lacked a genetic model fulfilling both high virulence and the possibility of performing stable and reproducible gene manipulation by homologous recombination (HR). Here, we developed a new methodology to successfully perform HR in Rhizopus microsporus. We isolated an uracil auxotrophic recipient strain and optimized the critical steps in the genetic transformation of this fungus. This was followed by an adaptation of a plasmid-free CRISPR-Cas9 system coupled with microhomology repair templates. We reproducibly generated stable mutants in the genes leuA and crgA, encoding a 3-isopropylmalate dehydratase and an ubiquitin ligase, respectively. Our new genetic model showed that mutations in the gene pyrF, a key virulence gene in several bacterial and fungal pathogens, correlated with an avirulent phenotype in an immunocompetent murine host. This was reverted by gene complementation, showing the broad possibilities of our methodology.