Human cytomegalovirus latency, reactivation and immune control

人巨细胞病毒(HCMV)是一种在大多数人群中无症状携带的病毒。然而，它可能会导致母亲在怀孕期间感染的婴儿以及免疫系统受到抑制的人所生的婴儿患上严重的疾病。了解病毒如何在大多数人身上成功地自我维持而不引发疾病，以及这种关系如何破裂导致疾病，应该有助于开发更好的治疗病毒和设计疫苗的方法(目前还没有可用的疫苗)。我们的研究旨在确定(I)病毒在免疫系统的特殊细胞中保持沉默感染(潜伏期)的机制，以及重新唤醒它的因素，以及(Ii)免疫系统如何控制正常人的感染。除了促进我们对巨细胞病毒的了解，这项研究还可能使我们更好地了解持续存在于体内的其他病毒感染，以及人类宿主如何控制它们。

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a virus which is carried without symptoms by the majority of the population. However, it can cause serious disease in infants born to mothers who acquire the infection in pregnancy and in people whose immune system is suppressed. Understanding how the virus succeeds in maintaining itself in most people without causing disease and how this relationship breaks down to cause disease should help develop better methods of treating the virus and of designing a vaccine (there is currently no vaccine available). Our research is aimed at determining (i) the mechanism by which the virus maintains silent infection (latency) in specialised cells of the immune system and the factors that reawake it and (ii) how the immune system controls the infection in normal people. In addition to advancing our understanding of HCMV in particular, this research may also lead to a better understanding of other virus infections which persist in the body, and how the human host controls them.