West Nile Virus

Horga, Maria-Arantxa; Fine, Anne

doi:10.1097/00006454-200108000-00016

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Similar to previous reports, symptomatic disease occurred predominantly in advanced age [1,4], with 54% of our study population aged 65 years or older; pediatric cases were rare [8]. Individuals of this epidemic presented predominantly with complaints of diffuse weakness, headache and a history of fever or chills.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Clinical and neuroradiologic features of 39 consecutive cases of West Nile Virus meningoencephalitis

Brilla

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Geremia

et al. 2004

Journal of the Neurological Sciences

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Clinical and neuroradiologic features of 39 consecutive cases of West Nile Virus meningoencephalitis

Brilla

Block

Geremia

et al. 2004

Journal of the Neurological Sciences

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“…West Nile virus infection has been identified by the Centers for Disease Control as an emerging infectious disease in the United States following documentation of 62 human cases in 1999 in New York City and the northeastern United States. Since 1937, when the first human case was isolated and identified in the West Nile district of Uganda, in Africa, infrequent human outbreaks of this virus with increasing virulence and case fatality generated by international travel and commerce (6, 12) has spread to Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America West Nile virus is an enveloped single-stranded sense, non-segmented RNA virus that belongs to the Flaviviridae family of viruses, which contains several medically important viruses associated with human encephalitis including Japanese encephalitis, St. Louis encephalitis, and Murray Valley encephalitis viruses (5,13). WNV primarily maintains an enzootic transmission cycle involving culicine mosquitoes and birds with episodic epizootic phenomenon infecting humans through the bites of infected female Culex pipiens, Culex restuans and Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes (5,13).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fatal Fulminant Pan‐Meningo‐Polioencephalitis Due to West Nile Virus

et al. 2003

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We report a case of fatal fulminant West Nile virus (WNV) meningoencephalitis in an 87‐year‐old white male gardener. The Pennsylvania patient presented with a 3‐day history of flu‐like symptoms. His hospital course was gravely precipitous with onset of coma, ventilator dependence, loss of cortical and brainstem functions within ten days of admission. Acute serum and cerebrospinal fluid samples revealed elevated levels of WNV IgM antibodies by ELISA as well as elevated CSF white blood cells, protein and glucose. A complete autopsy revealed a multifocal lymphocytic myocarditis and severe chronic tubulointerstitial nephritis. Viral culture and PCR analysis of post‐mortem samples of the spleen, kidney and brain were positive for WNV. Histological sections from all regions of the brain and spinal cord demonstrated a severe, non‐necrotizing, subacute, polio‐meningoencephalitis. While both gray and white matter were inflamed, gray matter was much more severely involved. Many gray matter nuclei showed severe neuronal loss with residual dying neurons surrounded by activated microglia. Immunohistochemical stains revealed profuse infiltration of the meninges and cerebral parenchyma by CD8 T‐lymphocytes and perivascular B‐lympho‐cytes. Electron micrographs revealed diffuse intracellular and extracellular edema but no viral particles were identified. Immunohistochemical and immunofluorescent staining for WNV filled the cytoplasm of residual neurons. West Nile virus mediates a predominantly polioencephalitis secondary to direct infection of neurons.

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“…The genome is a single-stranded positive-sense RNA encoding a polyprotein precursor of approximately 3,430 amino acids, which is cleaved into three structural (capsid, C; precursor membrane and membrane, prM/M; envelope, E) and seven nonstructural proteins (NS1, 2a, 2b, 3, 4a, 4b and 5) [1], [2]. WNV is present predominantly amongst avian hosts, and can infect humans through incidental zoonotic transmission via mosquitoes [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservation and Variability of West Nile Virus Proteins

et al. 2009

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West Nile virus (WNV) has emerged globally as an increasingly important pathogen for humans and domestic animals. Studies of the evolutionary diversity of the virus over its known history will help to elucidate conserved sites, and characterize their correspondence to other pathogens and their relevance to the immune system. We describe a large-scale analysis of the entire WNV proteome, aimed at identifying and characterizing evolutionarily conserved amino acid sequences. This study, which used 2,746 WNV protein sequences collected from the NCBI GenPept database, focused on analysis of peptides of length 9 amino acids or more, which are immunologically relevant as potential T-cell epitopes. Entropy-based analysis of the diversity of WNV sequences, revealed the presence of numerous evolutionarily stable nonamer positions across the proteome (entropy value of ≤1). The representation (frequency) of nonamers variant to the predominant peptide at these stable positions was, generally, low (≤10% of the WNV sequences analyzed). Eighty-eight fragments of length 9–29 amino acids, representing ∼34% of the WNV polyprotein length, were identified to be identical and evolutionarily stable in all analyzed WNV sequences. Of the 88 completely conserved sequences, 67 are also present in other flaviviruses, and several have been associated with the functional and structural properties of viral proteins. Immunoinformatic analysis revealed that the majority (78/88) of conserved sequences are potentially immunogenic, while 44 contained experimentally confirmed human T-cell epitopes. This study identified a comprehensive catalogue of completely conserved WNV sequences, many of which are shared by other flaviviruses, and majority are potential epitopes. The complete conservation of these immunologically relevant sequences through the entire recorded WNV history suggests they will be valuable as components of peptide-specific vaccines or other therapeutic applications, for sequence-specific diagnosis of a wide-range of Flavivivirus infections, and for studies of homologous sequences among other flaviviruses.

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West Nile Virus

Cited by 15 publications

References 10 publications

Clinical and neuroradiologic features of 39 consecutive cases of West Nile Virus meningoencephalitis

Clinical and neuroradiologic features of 39 consecutive cases of West Nile Virus meningoencephalitis

Fatal Fulminant Pan‐Meningo‐Polioencephalitis Due to West Nile Virus

Conservation and Variability of West Nile Virus Proteins

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