Award details

Studentship: Analysis of the function of infectious bronchitis virus accessory proteins-towards better vaccines

Reference	BBS/E/I/00001857
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr Helena Maier
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Professor Paul Britton
Institution	The Pirbright Institute
Department	The Pirbright Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	30,157
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/10/2013
End date	31/03/2017
Duration	41 months

Abstract

A key area of research in animal disease is the development of more effective and efficient vaccines to prevent infection and transmission. To be able to achieve this objective, a better understanding of virus interaction with host cells and viral pathogenicity factors is required. The avian coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) causes respiratory disease in chickens, and some strains cause pathology in the kidneys and reproductive tract. Virus infection results in significant losses to worldwide poultry industries due to reduced meat quality and reduced egg quality and production. Although both live attenuated and killed vaccines are available for IBV, there is poor cross protection between viral strains and the mechanism of attenuation of vaccine viruses is poorly understood. There is a real requirement for improved strategies for IBV vaccine design and understanding molecular aspects of virus replication will provide new insight for this. IBV encodes 5 accessory proteins, including the recently described gene 4b. The function of these accessory proteins is not understood, although they are known not to be required for virus replication in cell culture. The accessory proteins of other coronaviruses including mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) and SARS-coronavirus (SARS-CoV) have been shown to play a role in replication of viral RNA, evasion of host immune responses and modulation of host cell transcription. Although genetically distinct from the accessory proteins from MHV and SARS-CoV, it is possible that the function of the IBV accessory proteins may be similar. The objectives of this project will be to characterise more fully the function of accessory proteins 3a, 3b and 4b on virus replication and identify host cell and viral interaction partners. This will be achieved by virological, molecular biology and proteomic techniques, initially utilising existing recombinant viruses lacking these genes.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Animal Health, Immunology, Microbiology
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

I accept the terms and conditions of use (opens in new window)

export PDF file

back to list new search