Pre-clinical studies in mice and haemophilic dogs have shown that introduction of an adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector encoding blood coagulation factor IX (FIX) into skeletal muscle results in sustained expression of F.IX at levels sufficient to correct the haemophilic phenotype. On the basis of these data and additional pre-clinical studies demonstrating an absence of vector-related toxicity, we initiated a clinical study of intramuscular injection of an AAV vector expressing human F.IX in adults with severe haemophilia B. The study has a dose-escalation design, and all patients have now been enrolled in the initial dose cohort (2 x 10(11) vg/kg). Assessment in the first three patients of safety and gene transfer and expression show no evidence of germline transmission of vector sequences or formation of inhibitory antibodies against F.IX. We found that the vector sequences are present in muscle by PCR and Southern-blot analyses of muscle biopsies and we demonstrated expression of F.IX by immunohistochemistry. We observed modest changes in clinical endpoints including circulating levels of F.IX and frequency of FIX protein infusion. The evidence of gene expression at low doses of vector suggests that dose calculations based on animal data may have overestimated the amount of vector required to achieve therapeutic levels in humans, and that the approach offers the possibility of converting severe haemophilia B to a milder form of the disease.

Minute virus of canines (MVC) is a member of the genus

A series of 2-adamantanamines with alkyl adducts of various lengths were examined for efficacy against strains of influenza A including those having an S31N mutation in M2 proton channel that confer resistance to amantadine and rimantadine. The addition of as little as one CH2 group to the methyl adduct of the amantadine/rimantadine analogue, 2-methyl-2-aminoadamantane, led to activity in vitro against two M2 S31N viruses A/Calif/07/2009 (H1N1) and A/PR/8/34 (H1N1) but not to a third A/WS/33 (H1N1). Solid state NMR of the transmembrane domain (TMD) with a site mutation corresponding to S31N shows evidence of drug binding. But electrophysiology using the full length S31N M2 protein in HEK cells showed no blockade. A wild type strain, A/Hong Kong/1/68 (H3N2) developed resistance to representative drugs within one passage with mutations in M2 TMD, but A/Calif/07/2009 S31N was slow (>8 passages) to develop resistance in vitro, and the resistant virus had no mutations in M2 TMD. The results indicate that 2-alkyl-2-aminoadamantane derivatives with sufficient adducts can persistently block p2009 influenza A in vitro through an alternative mechanism. The observations of an HA1 mutation, N160D, near the sialic acid binding site in both 6-resistant A/Calif/07/2009(H1N1) and the broadly resistant A/WS/33(H1N1) and of an HA1 mutation, I325S, in the 6-resistant virus at a cell-culture stable site suggest that the drugs tested here may block infection by direct binding near these critical sites for virus entry to the host cell.

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The Bocavirus bovine parvovirus generated a single pre-mRNA from a promoter at its left-hand end; however, the pattern of its alternative polyadenylation and splicing was different from that of other parvoviruses. A large left-hand-end open reading frame (ORF) encoded a nonstructural protein of approximately 95 kDa. An abundant, spliced, internally polyadenylated transcript encoded the viral NP1 protein from an ORF in the center of the genome. Transcripts encoding the capsid proteins were polyadenylated in the right-hand terminal palindrome. This is the first published transcription map of a member of the Bocavirus genus of the Parvovirinae.The genus Bocavirus is one of five genera of the subfamily Parvovirinae of the family Parvoviridae (35). The currently recognized members of the Bocavirus genus include bovine parvovirus type 1 (BPV) (1), canine minute virus (32), and the recently identified human bocavirus (HBoV) (4). HBoV, first detected in pooled human samples of lower respiratory tract infections collected by PCR amplification in Sweden (4), has been reported to be associated with acute respiratory illness at incidence rates of between 1.5% and 11.3% worldwide (3, 5, 6, 11-13, 15, 19, 22-24, 34). Isolation of HBoV has not yet been reported.A transcription map of any Bocavirus species based on a nonbiased direct analysis of steady-state RNA has not yet been formally presented. In this report, we describe the transcription map of BPV following infection of permissive bovine turbinate (BT) cells as determined by RNase protection and Northern blotting assays. Like members of the genera Erythrovirus and Amdovirus of the Parvovirinae, the Bocavirus BPV has a single promoter at its left-hand end and uses both an internal and distal polyadenylation site. However, the alternative RNA processing strategy used by BPV generates a transcription profile that is different from that of other characterized parvoviruses.Sequencing of BPV and construction of a nearly full-length BPV clone. Because a previously constructed infectious clone of BPV (33) was no longer available, we recloned the majority of the BPV genome, using a PCR-based strategy, directly from plaque-purified BPV (the prototype Abinanti strain) (1), utilizing the published BPV sequence (GenBank accession no. NC_001540) to design primers. The revised sequence of BPV was deposited in GenBank, and all the nucleotide numbers in the manuscript refer to this revised sequence, unless otherwise specified. This nearly full-length clone, containing the revised BPV sequence (nucleotide [nt] 42 to 5515) in the pBluescript vector (Stratagene), was designated pSK42BPV. This clone was not infectious (data not shown).Our revised BPV sequence showed a number of silent mutations which differed from that of the sequence deposited previously, and these differences may reflect natural variations among isolates. However, in addition, we detected two more significant changes within the NS1 coding region which allowed the opening of the long NS open reading frame 1 (ORF 1) from n...

Three major structural proteins were found in adenovirus-associated virus (AAV) type 3H virions which were analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The molecular weights of the polypeptides were determined to be approximately 66,000 (VP1), 80,000 (VP2), and 92,000 (VP3). The component having a molecular weight of 66,000 comprised about 80% of the total virion protein in the major AAV-3H particle, and the other two components comprised about 10% each. Proteins of the same molecular weight were found in the minor dense AAV-3H virion, but the 80,000and 92,000-molecular-weight components were present at about one-half the concentration. The AAV-3H virion contains about 72 molecules of VP1 and 8 and 7 molecules of VP2 and VP3, respectively. Adenovirus-associated viruses (AAV; also referred to in the literature as adeno-satellite viruses or adeno-associated satellite viruses) are small (20 to 25 nm) defective parvoviruses containing single-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and were first noted as contaminants in adenovirus stocks. These agents require co-infection with serologically unrelated adenovirus for production of infectious progeny (1, 6, 16). There are four recognized serological types of AAV differentiated by complement fixation, immunodiffusion, neutralization, and fluorescent-antibody techniques (4). It has been found in our laboratory that parvovirus preparations frequently show three distinct virus bands when centrifuged to equilibrium in isopycnic CsCl gradients (5). In the case of AAV preparations, the major AAV infectious band is found in the density range of 1.388 to 1.445 g/ml depending on the serological type. This band is referred to as the major AAV band. A lighter band which contains little AAV infectivity is found in the density range of 1.33 to 1.36 g/ml. Examination by electron microscopy reveals that this band consists of a mixture of empty and par

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