Publications by authors named "Michelle D Audsley"

The incidence of arboviral diseases like dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever continues to rise in association with the expanding geographic ranges of their vectors, and . The distribution of these vectors is believed to be driven in part by climate change and increasing urbanization. Arboviruses navigate a wide range of temperatures as they transition from ectothermic vectors (from 15°C to 35°C) to humans (37°C) and back again, but the role that temperature plays in driving the evolution of arboviruses remains largely unknown.

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Antagonism of the interferon (IFN)-mediated antiviral state is critical to infection by rabies virus (RABV) and other viruses, and involves interference in the IFN induction and signaling pathways in infected cells, as well as deactivation of the antiviral state in cells previously activated by IFN. The latter is required for viral spread in the host, but the precise mechanisms involved and roles in RABV pathogenesis are poorly defined. Here, we examined the capacity of attenuated and pathogenic strains of RABV that differ only in the IFN-antagonist P protein to overcome an established antiviral state.

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The cytoplasmic retinoic acid-inducible gene-I (RIG-I)-like receptors (RLRs) initiate interferon (IFN) production and antiviral gene expression in response to RNA virus infection. Consequently, RLR signalling is tightly regulated by both host and viral factors. Tripartite motif protein 25 (TRIM25) is an E3 ligase that ubiquitinates multiple substrates within the RLR signalling cascade, playing both ubiquitination-dependent and -independent roles in RIG-I-mediated IFN induction.

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Type I Interferons (IFN-Is) are a family of cytokines which play a major role in inhibiting viral infection. Resultantly, many viruses have evolved mechanisms in which to evade the IFN-I response. Here we tested the impact of expression of 27 different SARS-CoV-2 genes in relation to their effect on IFN production and activity using three independent experimental methods.

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Viral disease is one of the greatest burdens for human health worldwide, with an urgent need for efficacious antiviral strategies. While antiviral drugs are available, in many cases, they are prone to the development of drug resistance. A way to overcome drug resistance associated with common antiviral therapies is to develop antivirals targeting host cellular co-factors critical to viral replication, such as DEAD-box helicase 3 X-linked (DDX3X), which plays key roles in RNA metabolism and the antiviral response.

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is an intracellular endosymbiont of insects that inhibits the replication of a range of pathogens in its arthropod hosts. The release of into wild populations of mosquitoes is an innovative biocontrol effort to suppress the transmission of arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) to humans, most notably dengue virus. The success of the -based approach hinges upon the stable persistence of the 'pathogen blocking' effect, whose mechanistic basis is poorly understood.

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A novel negative-sense RNA virus, Aedes aegypti anphevirus, was recently identified in wild Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. We show that this virus is also present in the Aag2 Aedes aegypti cell line and characterize its complete genome and evolutionary history. The Aedes aegypti anphevirus genome is estimated to be 12 916 nucleotides in length, contains four genes and has a genome structure similar to that of other anpheviruses.

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Hendra virus (HeV) is a paramyxovirus that causes lethal disease in humans, for which no vaccine or antiviral agent is available. HeV V protein is central to pathogenesis through its ability to interact with cytoplasmic host proteins, playing key antiviral roles. Here we use immunoprecipitation, siRNA knockdown and confocal laser scanning microscopy to show that HeV V shuttles to and from the nucleus through specific host nuclear transporters.

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Insect-symbiont interactions are known to play key roles in host functions and fitness. The common insect endosymbiont Wolbachia can reduce the ability of several human pathogens, including arboviruses and the malaria parasite, to replicate in insect hosts. Wolbachia does not naturally infect Aedes aegypti, the primary vector of dengue virus, but transinfected Ae.

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Background: Dengue virus (DENV) is primarily vectored by the mosquito Aedes aegypti, and is estimated to cause 390 million human infections annually. A novel method for DENV control involves stable transinfection of Ae. aegypti with the common insect endosymbiont Wolbachia, which mediates an antiviral effect.

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Paramyxoviruses replicate in the cytoplasm with no obvious requirement to interact with the nucleus. Nevertheless, the W protein of the highly lethal bat-borne paramyxovirus Nipah virus (NiV) is known to undergo specific targeting to the nucleus, mediated by a single nuclear localisation signal (NLS) within the C-terminal domain. Here, we report for the first time that additional sites modulate nucleocytoplasmic localisation of W.

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Genome replication and virion production by most negative-sense RNA viruses (NSVs) occurs exclusively in the cytoplasm, but many NSV-expressed proteins undergo active nucleocytoplasmic trafficking via signals that exploit cellular nuclear transport pathways. Nuclear trafficking has been reported both for NSV accessory proteins (including isoforms of the rabies virus phosphoprotein, and V, W and C proteins of paramyxoviruses) and for structural proteins. Trafficking of the former is thought to enable accessory functions in viral modulation of antiviral responses including the type I IFN system, but the intranuclear roles of structural proteins such as nucleocapsid and matrix proteins, which have critical roles in extranuclear replication and viral assembly, are less clear.

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IFN-antagonist function is a major determinant of pathogenicity and cross-species infection by viruses, but remains poorly defined for many potentially zoonotic viruses resident in animal species. The paramyxovirus family contains several zoonotic viruses, including highly pathogenic viruses such as Nipah virus and Hendra virus, and an increasing number of largely uncharacterized animal viruses. Here, we report the characterization of IFN antagonism by the rodent viruses J virus (JPV) and Beilong virus (BeiPV) of the proposed genus Jeilongvirus of the paramyxoviruses.

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Bovine ephemeral fever virus (BEFV) is an arthropod-borne rhabdovirus that is classified as the type species of the genus Ephemerovirus. In addition to the five canonical rhabdovirus structural proteins (N, P, M, G, and L), the large and complex BEFV genome contains several open reading frames (ORFs) between the G and L genes (α1, α2/α3, β, and γ) encoding proteins of unknown function. We show that the 10.

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The paramyxoviruses are a family of > 30 viruses that variously infect humans, other mammals and fish to cause diverse outcomes, ranging from asymptomatic to lethal disease, with the zoonotic paramyxoviruses Nipah and Hendra showing up to 70% case-fatality rate in humans. The capacity to evade host immunity is central to viral infection, and paramyxoviruses have evolved multiple strategies to overcome the host interferon (IFN)-mediated innate immune response through the activity of their IFN-antagonist proteins. Although paramyxovirus IFN antagonists generally target common factors of the IFN system, including melanoma differentiation associated factor 5, retinoic acid-inducible gene-I, signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT)1 and STAT2, and IFN regulatory factor 3, the mechanisms of antagonism show remarkable diversity between different genera and even individual members of the same genus; the reasons for this diversity, however, are not currently understood.

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