Vol 54, No 5 (2009)

The paper presents the results of the first isolation of the new influenza virus in Moscow and the Russian Federation, which was similar to the swine A/IIV-Moscow/01/2009(H1N1)swl strain isolated on May 24, 2009 from a Russian arrived in Moscow from the USA on May 19, 2009. The antigenic, biological, and molecular genetic properties of this virus were studied. The virus was isolated on MDCK and chick embryos, the hemagglutination titers being 1:8-1:16 AE; the infectious titers being 6.51g of the tissue cytopathogenic infective dose (TCID50) and 7.01g of the common infective dose (CID50). The virus was sensitive to arbidol, ribavirin, oseltamivir, and resistant to rimantadine. The complete virus genome was sequenced; the data were accepted to the Gen Bank on May 28, 2009 under GQ219584-GQ219590 and GQ202724. The significant gene substitution of neuraminidase Asp for Gly in position 451, which has been undetectable in any other strain published in the Gen Bank by the present time is unique only to A/IIV-Moscow/01/2009 (H1N1)swl. The virus has been deposited in the State Collection of Viruses, D. I. Ivanovsky Institute of Virology, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, under No. 2452 dated May 24, 2009.

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the antiviral properties of the glyproline Selank in both in vitro and in vivo against the influenza virus strain A/Aichi 2/68 (H3N2). The pronounced antiviral effect of the agent was detected in both systems. Selank added to the cell culture 24 hours before inoculation (a preventive use scheme) showed the highest efficiency, by completely suppressing viral reproduction. The in vivo studies also demonstrated that the highest survival of laboratory animals was observed when the agent was administered by the prevention scheme. The use of Selank in vivo induced the gene expression of interferon-б (IFN-б), without affecting that of interleukin (IL)-4, IL-10, or tumor necrosis factor-б (TNF-б). The findings suggest that the mechanism of the antiviral action of Selank may be due to its ability to modulate Th1/Th2/Treg cytokine equilibrium both directly and indirectly via the central nervous system. This is particularly promising if that the agent is synthesized on the basis of an endogenous peptide and that it has no negative effects is kept in mind.

In 2007-2008 in Russia, the epidemic upsurge of influenza morbidity was caused by the active circulation of influenza A(H1N1, A(H3N2), and B viruses. The center for Ecology and Epidemiology of Influenza studied 334 epidemic strains. The results of a comparative study of the svirus specificity of commercial test systems (AmpliSens Influenza virus A/B and AmpliSens Influenza virus A/H5N1) for the polymerase chain reaction diagnosis and virological assays, including virus isolation, revealed their high correlation, which confirms that they may be expensively used to monitor the circulation of influenza viruses in the Russian Federation. All the strains were isolated in the MDCK cell culture. Influenza A(H1N1) viruses (n = 127) were antigenic variants of the reference strains A/Solomon Islands/3/06 and A/Brisbane/59/07. Influenza A(H3N2) viruses (n = 49) were antigenic variants of the reference strains A/Wisconsin/67/05 and A/Brisbane/10/08. One hundred and fifty seven Influenza B strains were drift variants of the reference strains B/Florida/4/06 and B/Shanghai/361/02 of lineage B/Yamagata/16/88 and one strain, a variant of Malaysia/2506/04 related to lineage B/Victoria/2/87. The isolates interacted actively with human 0(I) blood group erythrocytes and much more weakly with chicken ones. All study influenza A(H1N1) viruses (n = 74) preserved their sensitivity to rimantadine while 24 (77%) of the 31 study influenza A(H3N2) virus strains were resistant. A study of the time course of changes in the generation of antibodies in the donor sera obtained in Moscow and the Moscow Region in different periods of the epidemic process revealed an increase in antibodies to the reference influenza A and B virus strains circulating in this period.

The purpose of the present investigation was to comparatively evaluate the performance characteristics of the test systems designed to verify the positive results of screening survey for HIV infection, such as the solid-phase immunoassay DS-EIA-HIV-AB/AG-SPECTR (Diagnosticheskiye Sistemy (Diagnostic Systems) Research-and-Production Association, Nizhni Novgorod) and tests based on immune blotting (IB). The investigation examined 15 seroconversion panels produced by ZeptoMetrix (USA) and BBI (USA). The use of the DS-EIA-HIV-AB/AG-SPECTR test system determined 88 of the 167 seroconversion panels as HIV positive. The IB-based tests revealed only 45 of the 167 samples as positive. Consequently, the application of the DS-EIA-HIV-AB/AG-SPECTR test system is more effective than the IB-based tests in early HIV infection.

The paper presents the results of genotyping and phylogenetic analysis of three noncytopathogenic isolates of bovine viral diarrhea virus from the mucosae of the cattle with different clinical presentations of the disease. On the basis of the phylogenetic analysis of high-conserved and variable virus genome regions (5'-UTR, Npro, and E2), the authors referred two isolates to as genotype 1, subgenotypes 1b and 1d, and the third isolate to as genotype 2. This is the first communication about the isolation of genotype 2 virus in Russia.