Publications related to Viral RNA Degradation and Diffusion Act as a Bottleneck for the Influenza A Virus Infection Efficiency

Inactivation of influenza A virus in expiratory droplets and aerosol particles and the associated physicochemical drivers

Influenza is an infectious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses. Every year, it causes up to one billion cases of disease worldwide. Despite its high disease burden, the transmission pathway of influenza remains subject to debate. There is incre ...

EPFL2024

Peptide-based virucidal drugs

Francesca Olgiati

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, viruses were not a major priority for the scientific community. Today, many events have changed the world and the importance of studying viruses, vaccines, and antiviral drugs is fully appreciated. The development of effective ...

EPFL2024

Stimulus-responsive assembly of nonviral nucleocapsids

Angela Steinauer

Controlled assembly of a protein shell around a viral genome is a key step in the life cycle of many viruses. Here we report a strategy for regulating the co-assembly of nonviral proteins and nucleic acids into highly ordered nucleocapsids in vitro. By fus ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Virucidal compounds and use thereof

Francesco Stellacci, Bruno Emanuel Ferreira De Sousa Correia, Pablo Gainza Cirauqui, Corey Alfred Stevens, Lukasz Richter, Francesca Olgiati, Chiara Medaglia

Disclosed herein are peptide-grafted compounds that irreversibly deactivate bacteriophages or influenza virus depending on the peptide and remain safe for bacteria and mammalian cells. The active compounds comprise a core (cyclodextrin or gold nanoparticle ...

2024

Comparison of Three Viral Nucleic Acid Preamplification Pipelines for Sewage Viral Metagenomics

Tamar Kohn, Xavier Fernandez Cassi

Viral metagenomics is a useful tool for detecting multiple human viruses in urban sewage. However, more refined protocols are required for its effective use in disease surveillance. In this study, we investigated the performance of three different preampli ...

2024

S-acylation and lipid exchange at the ER-Golgi membrane contact sites regulate pathogen entry in human cells

Muhammad Umair Anwar

Cells have evolved endocytic pathways to internalize different molecules, to regulate intra-cellular communication and their interaction with external environment. Pathogens have co-evolved with cells to exploit these processes for infections. In particula ...

EPFL2024

Influence of Amino Acid Substitutions in Capsid Proteins of Coxsackievirus B5 on Free Chlorine and Thermal Inactivation

Tamar Kohn, Shotaro Torii, Aleksandar Antanasijevic, Kiruthika Kumar

The sensitivity of enteroviruses to disinfectants varies among genetically similar variants and coincides with amino acid changes in capsid proteins, although the effect of individual substitutions remains unknown. Here, we employed reverse genetics to inv ...

2024

Stability of influenza A virus in droplets and aerosols is heightened by the presence of commensal respiratory bacteria

Tamar Kohn, Htet Kyi Wynn, Céline Terrettaz, Aline Laetitia Schaub, Athanasios Nenes, Kalliopi Violaki, Marta Augugliaro, Shannon Christa David, Ghislain Gilles Jean-Michel Motos, Walter Hugentobler, Laura José Costa Henriques, Daniel Scott Nolan

Aerosol transmission remains a major challenge for control of respiratory viruses, particularly those causing recurrent epidemics, like influenza A virus (IAV). These viruses are rarely expelled alone, but instead are embedded in a consortium of microorgan ...

American Society for Microbiology2024

Computational drug development for membrane protein targets

Henning Paul-Julius Stahlberg, Pierre Vogel, Shuguang Yuan, Dongchun Ni, Babatunde Edukpe Ekundayo

The application of computational biology in drug development for membrane protein targets has experienced a boost from recent developments in deep learning-driven structure prediction, increased speed and resolution of structure elucidation, machine learni ...

2024

Toward universal cell embeddings: integrating single-cell RNA-seq datasets across species with SATURN

Maria Brbic, Ziang Li

Analysis of single-cell datasets generated from diverse organisms offers unprecedented opportunities to unravel fundamental evolutionary processes of conservation and diversification of cell types. However, interspecies genomic differences limit the joint ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Simultaneous membrane and RNA binding by Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus capsid protein

Sarah Victoria Barrass

Tick-borne encephalitis virus is an enveloped, pathogenic, RNA virus in the family Flaviviridae, genus Flavivirus. Viral particles are formed when the nucleocapsid, consisting of an RNA genome and multiple copies of the capsid protein, buds through the end ...

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE2023

Multivalent Virucidal Antivirals: Synthesis, Mechanisms of Action, and Immune-stimulating Effects

Yong Zhu

Viruses initiate invasion by binding to cell surface glycoproteins. Materials mimicking the carbohydrate motifs of these glycoproteins, such as heparan sulfate (HS) and sialic acid (SA) can block viral attachment and inhibit the infection. Multivalent disp ...

EPFL2023

Inactivation mechanisms of influenza A virus under pH conditions encountered in aerosol particles as revealed by whole-virus HDX-MS

Tamar Kohn, Jonathan Paz Montoya, Aline Laetitia Schaub, Athanasios Nenes, Giovanni D'Angelo, Kalliopi Violaki, Shannon Christa David, Ghislain Gilles Jean-Michel Motos, Walter Hugentobler

Multiple respiratory viruses, including influenza A virus (IAV), can be transmitted via expiratory aerosol particles, and aerosol pH was recently identified as a major factor influencing airborne virus infectivity. Indoors, small exhaled aerosols undergo r ...

2023

Antiviral Mechanism of Virucidal Sialic Acid Modified Cyclodextrin

Francesco Stellacci, Paulo Henrique Jacob Silva, Marine Batista, Yong Zhu, Andrey Sysoev

We have reported that CD-6'SLN [6-sialyllactosamine (6'SLN)-modified beta-cyclodextrin (CD)] can be a potential anti-influenza drug because it irreversibly deactivates virions. Indeed, in vivo, CD-6'SLN improved mice survival in an H1N1 infection model eve ...

MDPI2023

Expiratory Aerosol pH is a Driver of the Persistence of Airborne Influenza A Virus

Aline Laetitia Schaub

To mitigate the spread of a viral disease, it is crucial to understand the factors that influence airborne virus transmission. However, the micro-environment to which the virus is exposed in expiratory aerosol particles is highly complex. The relative humi ...

SWISS CHEMICAL SOC2023

Surfactant Treatment for Efficient Gene Detection of Enteric Viruses and Indicators in Surface Water Concentrated by Ultrafiltration

Shotaro Torii

The hollow fiber ultrafiltration (HFUF)-based microbial concentration method is widely applied for monitoring pathogenic viruses and microbial indicators in environmental water samples. However, the HFUF-based method can co-concentrate substances that inte ...

SPRINGER2023

Susceptibility of enveloped and non-enveloped viruses to ultraviolet light-emitting diode (UV-LED) irradiation and implications for virus inactivation mechanisms

Shotaro Torii

Ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (UV-LEDs), a disinfection technology, efficiently inactivate pathogens in water. However, the assessment of UV-LED treatment and the mechanisms of UV inactivation on viruses (especially enveloped viruses) are limited. ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2023

Cholesterol-Containing Liposomes Decorated With Au Nanoparticles as Minimal Tunable Fusion Machinery

Francesco Stellacci, Paulo Henrique Jacob Silva, Ester Canepa, Giulia Rossi

Membrane fusion is essential for the basal functionality of eukaryotic cells. In physiological conditions, fusion events are regulated by a wide range of specialized proteins, operating with finely tuned local lipid composition and ionic environment. Fusog ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2023

PSGL-1 is an evolutionarily conserved antiviral restriction factor

Chao Jiang, Ying Liu

The arms race between viruses and their hosts shaped the evolutionary history and the genome composition of both parties. Restriction factors are the first-line antiviral effectors encoded by the host genomes and are often conserved through evolution to pr ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2023

Numerical simulation of the fate, transport and public health risks of enteric viruses in Lake Geneva

Chaojie Li

Lakes are a fundamental feature of nature with brilliance, profoundness and complexity. Various of physical, chemical and biological changes take place three dimensionally in deep lakes, regulated by complicated boundary conditions. To understand and predi ...

EPFL2023