Coronaviruses

An adult model of exclusive viral wheeze: inflammation in the upper and lower respiratory tracts

“…Experimental infection with a laboratory strain of virus differs in several respects to a wild infection. The ability of a cultured virus to trigger LRT symptoms may well be affected by attenuation as well as some unknown virus‐specific factors, although this did not prove to be the case here or in previous studies [18, 23]. The dose and route of inoculation are clearly different from the wild situation.…”

“…HCoV, the second most prevalent common cold virus, is known to be associated with exacerbations of asthma in children [16] and with pre‐school wheeze [17]. Also, symptoms may be virus‐dependent [18], so it is important to study viruses other than HRV. We have previously reported that LRT symptoms and increased bronchial responsiveness in EVW subjects occur only during symptomatic infection and that these effects are independent of atopy [4].…”

A new infectious disease challenge: Urbani severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) associated coronavirus

“…Over the next four decades little attention was paid to this human virus family, although it was recognised that the total range of pathogenicity within the wider family was very wide, encompassing gastroenteritis in pigs, bronchitis in chickens and liver disease in mice. There were some warnings of viral pneumonia in humans, but only in army camps and other rather closed communities 8 . Most adults in the world have antibody and presumably immunity to the two classic virus serotypes and there is little evidence of antigenic drift or changes over the years.…”

“…Serologically, human antibodies to the two human viruses 229E and OC43 do not cross react with the new virus. The rapidity of modern molecular techniques has lead to the development of new diagnostic tests for the virus using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) and also serological tests within 6 weeks of the first isolation of virus 8 . To date the latter have failed to detect antiviral antibody in non‐ill controls, whereas clinically ill patients, as expected, show rises in specific antibody to the new coronavirus but not to the two known, more mild, human coronaviruses.…”

“…The spike is a receptor protein of the virus which mediates membrane fusion as the virus enters a cell. There is an inverse relationship between severity of disease with pre‐existing serum antibody 8 . Predominantly the post‐infection response is against the S protein, but antibody to the internal nucleoprotein (NP) and matrix (M) proteins is also detected 11 .…”