Chicken Pox Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Chicken Pox, including details on symptoms, vaccine, adult, infant, treatment.

Identification and functional characterization of the Varicella zoster virus ORF11 gene product.

Che X, Oliver SL, Sommer MH, Rajamani J, Reichelt M, Arvin AM

Departments of Pediatrics and Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. xibing@stanford.edu

The deletion of ORF11 severely impaired VZV infection of human skin xenografts. Here, we investigate the characteristics and functions of the ORF11 gene product. ORF11 is expressed as a 118kDa polypeptide in VZV-infected cells; the protein is present in the nucleus and cytoplasm and is incorporated into VZ virions. Although ORF11 had little effect in transactivating VZV gene promoters in transfection assays, deleting ORF11 from the virus was associated with reduced expression of immediate early proteins IE4, IE62 and IE63, and the major glycoprotein, gE. ORF11 was identified as an RNA binding protein and its RNA binding domain was defined. However, disrupting the ORF11 RNA binding domain did not affect skin infection, indicating that RNA binding capacity, conserved among the alphaherpesviruses homologues, is not essential while the contribution of ORF11 to the expression of the IE proteins and gE may be required for VZV pathogenesis in skin in vivo.

Published 14 March 2011 in Virology, 412(1): 156-66.
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Articles on Chicken Pox published 25 February 2011:

Sequence analysis of the glycoprotein E gene of varicella-zoster virus strains of clades 1, 3 and 5.   Arch Virol, 156(3): 505-9.

Eighty-six varicella-zoster virus (VZV) strains of clades 1, 3 and 5, isolated from varicella and zoster patients in Germany, were analyzed by sequencing the glycoprotein E gene. Four novel non-synonymous and 10 novel synonymous mutations were detected. Of these, two synonymous (C513T, C885T) and two non-synonymous mutations (T485G, C524T) were located within the coding regions of e1 and c1. The profile of single-nucleotide polymorphisms was found to be significantly associated with the VZV ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

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Characterization of the nuclear import and export signals, and subcellular transport mechanism of varicella-zoster virus ORF9.   J Gen Virol, 92: 621-6.

Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) open reading frame 9 (ORF9) mRNA is one of the most abundantly expressed messages during VZV infection. However, little is known concerning the function of ORF9 protein. Here, we found that transient expression of ORF9 fused to enhanced yellow fluorescent protein (EYFP) in COS-7 cells showed a predominantly cytoplasmic localization in the absence of other viral proteins. By constructing a series of ORF9 variants fused to EYFP, a bona fide bipartite nuclear ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

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We recently developed a novel multiplex reverse transcription (RT)-PCR assay that allows rapid and sensitive detection of transcripts corresponding to all 68 unique varicella-zoster virus (VZV) open reading frames (ORFs) in only five amplification reactions (M. A. Nagel, D. Gilden, T. Shade, B. Gao, and R. J. Cohrs, J. Virol. Methods 157:62-68, 2009). Herein, we applied multiplex RT-PCR analysis to mRNA extracted from 26 trigeminal ganglia latently infected with VZV and one control trigeminal ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

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In 2006, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that children routinely receive 2 varicella vaccine doses in place of the 1 dose previously recommended. This recommendation's initial impact on varicella epidemiology in Connecticut was assessed. Reported incidence and case-specific data were compared for 2005 and 2008. Varicella incidence decreased from 48.7 cases/100,000 persons in 2005 to 24.5 in 2008. Age-specific incidence decreased significantly (P < .05) among ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

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In 2006, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that children routinely receive 2 varicella vaccine doses in place of the 1 dose previously recommended. This recommendation's initial impact on varicella epidemiology in Connecticut was assessed. Reported incidence and case-specific data were compared for 2005 and 2008. Varicella incidence decreased from 48.7 cases/100,000 persons in 2005 to 24.5 in 2008. Age-specific incidence decreased significantly (P < .05) among ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Impact of 2-dose vaccination on varicella epidemiology: Connecticut--2005-2008.   J Infect Dis, 203(4): 509-12.

In 2006, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that children routinely receive 2 varicella vaccine doses in place of the 1 dose previously recommended. This recommendation's initial impact on varicella epidemiology in Connecticut was assessed. Reported incidence and case-specific data were compared for 2005 and 2008. Varicella incidence decreased from 48.7 cases/100,000 persons in 2005 to 24.5 in 2008. Age-specific incidence decreased significantly (P < .05) among ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Chicken Pox published 6 January 2011:

Effectiveness of 2 doses of varicella vaccine in children.   J Infect Dis, 203(3): 312-5.

[Abstract] [Full-text]

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Zoster of the sciatic nerve, the longest nerve in the human body, is an uncommon event. We cared for a child with sciatic nerve zoster who had severe pain over the lower back 6 days before appearance of vesicular rash on the foot in the L4 dermatome. On the basis of the clinical data, we calculated an anterograde velocity for the varicella zoster virion of 5.55 mm/h or .0015 mm/s. Because there is no good animal model of varicella zoster virus reactivation from latency, this experiment of ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

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