Vol 58, No 5 (2013)

The role of interferon in influenza and herpes infections, general patterns of the interferon system in these diseases, the identification of interferon deficiency, the possibility of their correction with the immune active drugs, including interferon inducers combining antiviral immunomodulatory interferon effects with etiopathogenic corrective mode of action, are discussed. Clinical values of faster recovery confirm the suitability of their application in the immunocompromised patients.

The khasan virus (KHAV) was originally isolated in Khasansky District and maritime territory in 1971 from the ticks Haemophysalis longicornis Neumann, 1901) collected from the deers Cervus nippon (temmink, 1838). Based on the biological properties and virion morphology, KHAV was identified as an unclassified member of the Bunyaviridae family. in order to elucidate the KHAV taxonomy in more detail, viral genome was partially sequenced using the next-generation sequencing technology. according to the phylogenetic analysis conducted for partial sequences of the three genome segments, KHAV was attributed to the genus phlebovirus. KHAV is phylogenetically mostly related to the viruses of the Uukuniemi group and has up to 62% identity with them. the maximum identity level is observed for sequences of the mA-dependent-mA-polymerase (rdrp) gene. the KHAV homology level with the tick-borne Uukuniemi group viruses is 50 to 62%; however, for the mosquito-borne phleboviruses it does not exceed 30%.

The live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAiV) currently licensed in Russia consists of the reassortant viruses with hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (nA) gene segments from the circulating wild-type viruses and the six internal protein-encoding gene segments from cold-adapted master donor viruses (MDV) A/Leningrad/134/17/57 (H2N2) or B/USSR/60/69. Presently, only classical reassortment technique is approved for the generation of Russian LAiV strains. in this work, we describe the obstacles to the development of LAiV 6:2 vaccine strains depending on the phenotypic properties of the wild-type viruses used for reassortment. it was demonstrated that the highest percentage of 6:2 vaccine reassortants could be achieved when wild-type parental viruses were resistant to non-specific gamma-inhibitors. it was shown that it was impossible to generate 6:2 vaccine reassortants possessing six internal genes of the A/Leningrad/134/17/57 (H2N2) master donor virus and avian HA and NA genes from H5N1-PR8 viruses using classical reassortment technique. it was suggested that strong constellation effects between the gene segments of the parental viruses could affect the virus gene reassortment. A strong interaction between the genome segments encoding neuraminidase of avian origin and PB2 gene of PR8 virus was observed. When the PB2 gene was inherited from cold-adapted master donor virus, the neuraminidase was also found to be of MDV origin.

Five hybridomas secreting monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) for the nucleocapsid protein of the rabies virus were obtained through the fusion of the sp2/0 murine myeloma cells with splenocytes of BALB/c mice immunized with fixed rabies virus (CVs strain). Ah hybridomas secret mabs of the igG class that display different specificity to the nucleocapsids of rabies and rabies-related viruses. mabs 2e11 showed the specificity for the prevalent in Russia rabies viruses that are similar to commercially available anti-rabies conjugate.