Persistent Infections

先天性、生殖器和移植获得性感染-人类巨细胞病毒基因组学首席研究员安德鲁·戴维森博士与格拉斯哥大学MRC-格拉斯哥大学病毒研究中心(CVR)的Sheila Graham教授和Ruth Jarrett教授合作。对于免疫系统不成熟或工作不正常的人来说，人类巨细胞病毒(HCMV)可能是一个严重的问题。它是胎儿感染的主要原因，是移植受者患病的主要原因，也是艾滋病患者的一个问题。HCMV基因组很大，但新的方法使我们有可能了解病毒株之间的差异在感染中所起的作用。为了实现这一点，我们创造了一种直接从临床样本中对完整的人巨细胞病毒基因组进行快速测序的方法。我们计划将病毒变异与不同群体，特别是移植受者的感染结果联系起来。这将包括分析1000多名感染患者的病毒基因组序列。在其他项目中，我们将使用现代方法研究不寻常的HCMV RNA的功能，并研究这是否可能为治疗感染的药物提供新的思路。最后，我们将把我们的技术应用于HCMV的近亲人类疱疹病毒6型(HHV6)。这将帮助我们了解，在所有细胞中整合了HHV6基因组并有能力将其遗传给子女的1%的人类，是否有患特定疾病的风险。

Congenital, Genital and Transplant-Acquired Infections – Genomics of Human CytomegalovirusDr Andrew Davison, Lead Investigator, in collaboration with Prof Sheila Graham and Prof Ruth Jarrett, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR), University of Glasgow.Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) can be a serious issue for people whose immune systems are immature or not working properly. It is a major cause of foetal infections, a leading cause of illness in transplant recipients, and a problem for AIDS patients.HCMV has a large genome, but new methods make it possible for us to understand the role that differences among viral strains play in infection. To make this practical, we have created a rapid way of sequencing complete HCMV genomes directly from clinical samples. We plan to relate viral variation to the outcome of infection in various groups, particularly transplant recipients. This willinvolve analysing viral genome sequences in over 1000 infected patients.In other projects, we will use modern approaches to study the functions of unusual HCMV RNAs and work out whether this might provide new ideas for drugs to treat infections.Finally, we will apply our techniques to a relative of HCMV called human herpesvirus 6 (HHV6). This will help us understand whether the 1% of humans who have an HHV6 genome integrated into all their cells, and are capable of passing it to their children, are at risk of particular diseases.