Regulation of interferon production in the lung during respiratory syncytial virus infection

所有儿童在两岁之前都感染呼吸道合胞病毒（RSV），大多数情况下感染会出现正常感冒的症状。然而，在2-3%的婴儿中，RSV感染导致称为细支气管炎的严重疾病，并导致住院。细支气管炎是肺部下部细支气管的炎症。在RSV感染期间，免疫系统必须对抗病毒，但也要确保肺部不受损害，这似乎在发生细支气管炎的小部分婴儿中失败。因此，重要的是要了解RSV感染期间如何诱导和调节免疫应答。这项研究计划将重点关注免疫系统如何感知肺部RSV的存在，以及这如何导致早期介质（称为干扰素）的产生，干扰素与病毒抵抗和预防细支气管炎有关。因此，该提案的结果可能会影响寻找有效的毛细支气管炎免疫疗法或开发RSV疫苗的策略。

All children are infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) before age of two and most of the time the infection gives symptoms of a normal cold. However, in 2-3% of infants RSV infection lead to severe disease, called bronchiolitis, and to hospitalisation. Bronchiolitis is inflammation of the lower parts of the lungs, the bronchioles. During RSV infection the immune system has to combat the virus but also make sure that the lungs are not damaged and this appears to fail in the small % of infants who develop bronchiolitis. Therefore, it is important to understand how the immune responses are induced and regulated during RSV infection. This research proposal will focus on how the immune system senses the presence of RSV in the lungs and how this lead to production of early mediators, called interferons, which have been implicated both in resistance to the virus and in prevention of bronchiolitis. The results from this proposal may therefore impact on strategies for finding efficient immune therapies for bronchiolitis or for developing vaccines against RSV.