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All Outputs (35)

Human Adaptation of Ebola Virus during the West African Outbreak (2016)
Journal Article
Urbanowicz, R. A., McClure, C. P., Sakuntabhai, A., Sall, A. A., Kobinger, G., Müller, M. A., …Ball, J. K. (2016). Human Adaptation of Ebola Virus during the West African Outbreak. Cell, 167(4), 1079-1087.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2016.10.013

The 2013–2016 outbreak of Ebola virus (EBOV) in West Africa was the largest recorded. It began following the cross-species transmission of EBOV from an animal reservoir, most likely bats, into humans, with phylogenetic analysis revealing the cocircul... Read More about Human Adaptation of Ebola Virus during the West African Outbreak.

Novel functional hepatitis C virus glycoprotein isolates identified using an optimized viral pseudotype entry assay (2016)
Journal Article
Urbanowicz, R. A., McClure, C. P., King, B., Mason, C. P., Ball, J. K., & Tarr, A. W. (2016). Novel functional hepatitis C virus glycoprotein isolates identified using an optimized viral pseudotype entry assay. Journal of General Virology, 97(9), 2265-2279. https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.000537

Retrovirus pseudotypes are a highly tractable model used to study the entry pathways of enveloped viruses. This model has been extensively applied to the study of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) entry pathway, pre-clinical screening of antiviral antibodi... Read More about Novel functional hepatitis C virus glycoprotein isolates identified using an optimized viral pseudotype entry assay.

Flexible and rapid construction of viral chimeras applied to hepatitis C virus (2016)
Journal Article
McClure, P. C., Urbanowicz, R. A., King, B. J., Cano-Crespo, S., Tarr, A. W., & Ball, J. K. (2016). Flexible and rapid construction of viral chimeras applied to hepatitis C virus. Journal of General Virology, 97(9), 2187-2193. https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.000530

A novel and broadly applicable strategy combining site directed mutagenesis and DNA assembly for constructing seamless viral chimeras is described using Hepatitis C Virus as an exemplar. Full-length HCV genomic cloning cassettes, which contained flex... Read More about Flexible and rapid construction of viral chimeras applied to hepatitis C virus.

Hepatitis C virus quasispecies and pseudotype analysis from acute infection to chronicity in HIV-1 co-infected individuals (2016)
Journal Article
Ferns, R. B., Tarr, A. W., Hue, S., Urbanowicz, R. A., McClure, C. P., Gilson, R., …Pillay, D. (2016). Hepatitis C virus quasispecies and pseudotype analysis from acute infection to chronicity in HIV-1 co-infected individuals. Virology, 492, 213-224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.virol.2016.02.003

HIV-1 infected patients who acquire HCV infection have higher rates of chronicity and liver disease progression than patients with HCV mono-infection. Understanding early events in this pathogenic process is important. We applied single genome sequen... Read More about Hepatitis C virus quasispecies and pseudotype analysis from acute infection to chronicity in HIV-1 co-infected individuals.

Novel human anti-claudin 1 mAbs inhibit hepatitis C virus infection and may synergize with anti-SRB1 mAb (2016)
Journal Article
Paciello, R., Urbanowicz, R. A., Riccio, G., Sasso, E., McClure, C. P., Zambrano, N., …De Lorenzo, C. (2016). Novel human anti-claudin 1 mAbs inhibit hepatitis C virus infection and may synergize with anti-SRB1 mAb. Journal of General Virology, 97(1), 82-94. https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.000330

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of chronic hepatitis and liver carcinoma and new therapies based on novel targets are needed. The tight junction protein claudin 1 (CLDN-1) is essential for HCV cell entry and spread, and anti-CLDN-1 rat and m... Read More about Novel human anti-claudin 1 mAbs inhibit hepatitis C virus infection and may synergize with anti-SRB1 mAb.

A diverse panel of hepatitis C virus glycoproteins for use in vaccine research reveals extremes of monoclonal antibody neutralization resistance (2015)
Journal Article
Urbanowicz, R. A., McClure, P., Brown, R. J., Tsoleridis, T., Persson, M. A., Krey, T., …Tarr, A. W. (2016). A diverse panel of hepatitis C virus glycoproteins for use in vaccine research reveals extremes of monoclonal antibody neutralization resistance. Journal of Virology, 90(7), 3288-3301. https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.02700-15

Despite significant advances in the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, the need to develop preventative vaccines remains. Identification of the best vaccine candidates and evaluation of their performance in preclinical and clinical devel... Read More about A diverse panel of hepatitis C virus glycoproteins for use in vaccine research reveals extremes of monoclonal antibody neutralization resistance.

An ancestral host defence peptide within human beta-defensin 3 recapitulates the antibacterial and antiviral activity of the full-length molecule (2015)
Journal Article
Nigro, E., Colavita, I., Sarnataro, D., Scudiero, O., Zambrano, G., Granata, V., …Pessi, A. (2015). An ancestral host defence peptide within human beta-defensin 3 recapitulates the antibacterial and antiviral activity of the full-length molecule. Scientific Reports, 5, Article 18450. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep18450

Host defence peptides (HDPs) are critical components of innate immunity. Despite their diversity, they share common features including a structural signature, designated “γ-core motif”. We reasoned that for each HDPs evolved from an ancestral γ-core,... Read More about An ancestral host defence peptide within human beta-defensin 3 recapitulates the antibacterial and antiviral activity of the full-length molecule.

Recombinant Human L-Ficolin Directly Neutralizes Hepatitis C Virus Entry (2014)
Journal Article
Hamed, M. R., Brown, R. J., Zothner, C., Urbanowicz, R. A., Mason, C. P., Krarup, A., …Tarr, A. W. (2014). Recombinant Human L-Ficolin Directly Neutralizes Hepatitis C Virus Entry. Journal of Innate Immunity, 6(5), 676-684. https://doi.org/10.1159/000362209

L-ficolin is a soluble pattern recognition molecule expressed by the liver that contributes to innate immune defense against microorganisms. It is well described that binding of L-ficolin to specific pathogen-associated molecular patterns activates t... Read More about Recombinant Human L-Ficolin Directly Neutralizes Hepatitis C Virus Entry.

Analysis of Serine Codon Conservation Reveals Diverse Phenotypic Constraints on Hepatitis C Virus Glycoprotein Evolution (2014)
Journal Article
Brown, R. J., Koutsoudakisu, G., Urbanowicz, R. A., Mirza, D., Ginkel, C., Riebesehl, N., …Ball, J. K. (2014). Analysis of Serine Codon Conservation Reveals Diverse Phenotypic Constraints on Hepatitis C Virus Glycoprotein Evolution. Journal of Virology, 88(1), 667-678. https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.01745-13

Serine is encoded by two divergent codon types, UCN and AGY, which are not interchangeable by a single nucleotide substitution. Switching between codon types therefore occurs via intermediates (threonine or cysteine) or via simultaneous tandem substi... Read More about Analysis of Serine Codon Conservation Reveals Diverse Phenotypic Constraints on Hepatitis C Virus Glycoprotein Evolution.

An alpaca nanobody inhibits hepatitis C virus entry and cell-to-cell transmission (2013)
Journal Article
Tarr, A. W., Lafaye, P., Meredith, L., Damier-Piolle, L., Urbanowicz, R. A., Meola, A., …Krey, T. (2013). An alpaca nanobody inhibits hepatitis C virus entry and cell-to-cell transmission. Hepatology, 58(3), 932-939. https://doi.org/10.1002/hep.26430

Severe liver disease caused by chronic hepatitis C virus is the major indication for liver transplantation. Despite recent advances in antiviral therapy, drug toxicity and unwanted side effects render effective treatment in liver-transplanted patient... Read More about An alpaca nanobody inhibits hepatitis C virus entry and cell-to-cell transmission.

The Role of Humoral Innate Immunity in Hepatitis C Virus Infection (2012)
Journal Article
Tarr, A. W., Urbanowicz, R. A., & Ball, J. K. (2012). The Role of Humoral Innate Immunity in Hepatitis C Virus Infection. Viruses, 4(1), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.3390/v4010001

Infection with Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) causes chronic disease in approximately 80% of cases, resulting in chronic inflammation and cirrhosis. Current treatments are not completely effective, and a vaccine has yet to be developed. Spontaneous resoluti... Read More about The Role of Humoral Innate Immunity in Hepatitis C Virus Infection.

The role of neutralizing antibodies in hepatitis C virus infection (2012)
Journal Article
Edwards, V. C., Tarr, A. W., Urbanowicz, R. A., & Ball, J. K. (2012). The role of neutralizing antibodies in hepatitis C virus infection. Journal of General Virology, 93(1), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1099/vir.0.035956-0

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a blood-borne virus estimated to infect around 170 million people worldwide and is, therefore, a major disease burden. In some individuals the virus is spontaneously cleared during the acute phase of infection, whilst in ot... Read More about The role of neutralizing antibodies in hepatitis C virus infection.

Hepatitis C patient-derived glycoproteins exhibit marked differences in susceptibility to serum neutralizing antibodies: Genetic subtype defines antigenic but not neutralization serotype (2011)
Journal Article
Tarr, A. W., Urbanowicz, R. A., Hamed, M. R., Albecka, A., McClure, C. P., Brown, R. J., …Ball, J. K. (2011). Hepatitis C patient-derived glycoproteins exhibit marked differences in susceptibility to serum neutralizing antibodies: Genetic subtype defines antigenic but not neutralization serotype. Journal of Virology, 85(9), 4246-4257. https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.01332-10

Neutralizing antibodies have a role in controlling hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. A successful vaccine will need to elicit potently neutralizing antibodies that are capable of preventing the infection of genetically diverse viral isolates. Howeve... Read More about Hepatitis C patient-derived glycoproteins exhibit marked differences in susceptibility to serum neutralizing antibodies: Genetic subtype defines antigenic but not neutralization serotype.