Virology Core

人类伽玛疱疹病毒，包括卡波西肉瘤相关疱疹病毒(KSHV)和爱泼斯坦-巴尔病毒(EBV)，与多种癌症有关。针对EBV和KSHV的疫苗将减少病毒相关癌症的发生。疱疹病毒疫苗开发面临的主要挑战包括潜伏期的免疫沉默性质以及病毒编码的大量免疫逃避基因。我们的目标是了解病毒和宿主免疫反应之间的相互作用。这些知识将被用于开发新的疫苗策略。本节目将重点对KSHV进行研究。然而，KSHV没有强大的裂解复制或小动物感染模型。为了补充KSHV的研究，该计划还将利用基于一种密切相关的啮齿病毒--小鼠伽马疱疹病毒68(MHV-68，也称为YHV-68，或MuHV-4)的实验模型，以证明原理实验。该计划中的所有研究项目都将调查细胞因素对病毒复制和病毒免疫逃避机制的各个方面的影响。因此，组织一个能够提供集中、协调和具有成本效益的服务的核心将更有效率，其中包括提供KSHV和MHV-68的化验、试剂和专业知识。核心B将产生和提供重组KSHV和MHV-68病毒。此外，Core将提供体外细胞培养系统和病毒学分析，以及方案、试剂和对照。

Human gamma-herpesviruses, including Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) and Epstein Barr virus (EBV) are associated with a variety of cancers. Vaccines against EBV and KSHV would reduce the occurrence of virus-associated cancers. Major challenges to vaccine development for herpesviruses include the immunologically silent nature of latency and the large collections of immune evasion genes encoded by the viruses. Our goal is to understand the interactions between the virus and the host immune response. The knowledge will be utilized to develop new vaccine strategies. This Program will focus the research on KSHV. However, KSHV does not have robust lytic replication or a small animal infection model. To complement the studies in KSHV, this Program will also exploit an experimental model based on a closely related rodent virus, murine gammaherpesvirus 68 (MHV-68, also known as yHV-68, or MuHV-4), for proof of principle experiments. All of the research projects in this Program will investigate the effects of cellular factors on various aspects of viral replication and viral immune evasion mechanisms. Thus, it will be more efficient to organize a core that can provide a centralized, coordinated, and cost-efficient service which includes providing assays, reagents, and expertise on KSHV and MHV-68. Core B will generate and provide recombinant KSHV and MHV-68 viruses. In addition, the Core will provide in vitro cell culture systems and the virological assays with protocols, reagents and controls.