Influenza is a highly infectious disease characterized by recurrent annual epidemics and unpredictable major worldwide pandemics. Rapid spread of the highly pathogenic avian H5N1 strain and escalating human infections by the virus have set off the alarm for a global pandemic. To provide an urgently needed alternative treatment modality for influenza, we have generated a recombinant fusion protein composed of a sialidase catalytic domain derived from Actinomyces viscosus fused with a cell surface-anchoring sequence. The sialidase fusion protein is to be applied topically as an inhalant to remove the influenza viral receptors, sialic acids, from the airway epithelium. We demonstrate that a sialidase fusion construct, DAS181, effectively cleaves sialic acid receptors used by both human and avian influenza viruses. The treatment provides long-lasting effect and is nontoxic to the cells. DAS181 demonstrated potent antiviral and cell protective efficacies against a panel of laboratory strains and clinical isolates of IFV A and IFV B, with virus replication inhibition 50% effective concentrations in the range of 0.04 to 0.9 nM. Mouse and ferret studies confirmed significant in vivo efficacy of the sialidase fusion in both prophylactic and treatment modes.

These results provide valuable insights into DAS181 treatment dose and potential regimens in the clinical setting.

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An analysis of the precision obtained using commercially available microvalve injectors is reported for three modes of injection: conventional split; timed-split; and direct. Results from this study show that good precision (< 3% RSD for external standard and < 1% RSD for internal standard methods) can be obtained with capillary supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). However, particular attention must be paid to the type of valve used, theorientationof thecolumnrelative to thevalve, the mode of interfacing or connecting the column to the valve, and the type of pressure or density programming used for the analysis as all of these factors will affect the reproducibility.

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The theoretical and practical implications of simultaneous temperature/pressure and synchronized density/temperature programming are considered. Examples are shown for separations of dimethylpolysiloxanes where these techniques provide superior separation over their analogous isothermal programming methods.

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