Vol 61, No 2 (2016)

This work deals with the systematics and taxonomy of orthobunyaviruses, little-studied dangerous and new viruses akabane, aino, schmallenberg, cache Valley diseases, Oropouche fever. The significance of the reassortment mechanism of their origin and diversification is discussed.

Infertility is an actual medical and social problem. In 50% of couples it is associated with the male factor and in more than 50% of cases the etiology of the infertility remains insufficiently understood. The goal of this work was to study the prevalence and to perform quantitative analysis of the human herpes viruses (HHV) and high carcinogenic risk papilloma viruses (HR HPV) in males with infertility, as well as to assess the impact of these infections on sperm parameters.

Ejaculate samples obtained from 196 males fall into 3 groups. Group 1 included men with the infertility of unknown etiology (n = 112); group 2, patients who had female partners with the history of spontaneous abortion (n = 63); group 3 (control), healthy men (n = 21).

HHV and HR HPV DNA in the ejaculates were detected in a total of 42/196 (21.4%) males: in 31 and 11 patients in groups 1 and 2, respectively (p > 0.05) and in none of healthy males. HHV were detected in 24/42; HR HPV, in 18/42 males (p > 0.05) without significant difference between the groups. Among HR HPV genotypes of the clade a9 in ejaculate were more frequent (14/18, p = 0.04). comparative analysis of the sperm parameters showed that in the ejaculates of the infected patients sperm motility as well as the number of morphologically normal cells were significantly reduced compared with the healthy men. The quantification of the viral DNA revealed that in 31% of the male ejaculates the viral load was high: >3 lg10/100000 cells.

Conclusion. The detection of HHV and HR HPV in the ejaculate is associated with male infertility. Quantification of the viral DNA in the ejaculate is a useful indicator for monitoring viral infections in infertility and for decision to start therapy.

The goal of this work was the evaluation of the frequency of human CMV infection among the women, whose pregnancy ended in miscarriage, detection of active forms of infection and treatment before pregnancy. Virological and sero-immunological techniques were used. A total of 116 women who had miscarriages before the 28 week of pregnancy were submitted to the CMV test. 109 women (94.0%) demonstrated positive results. 49 women (42.2%) had active form of the cytomegalovirus infection. 13 women (26.5%) had the recurrent form and 36 patients (73.5%) had the persistent form of CMV infection (stage of productive replication). All the women with active cMVi were treated before the next pregnancy. Immunomodulatory therapy for the treatment was used.

Introduction. Insect viruses can play an important role in population dynamics of their hosts. That is why the problem of permanent viral infection support among virus-positive insects is associated with one of the intriguing problems of general biology and virology.

Materials and methods. Under laboratory conditions, the modeling of the vertical transmission of the nucleopolyhedrovirus (NPV) gypsy moth was implemented at relatively high level of mortality among insects of parental generation (60%). The diagnostics of the occult virus was executed by the PCR method among insects before their infection under laboratory conditions, as well as among insects that survived after inoculation. results. The NPV-caused mortality among insects that survived after infection in generations F₁, F₂, and F₃ was 14 ± 4%, 10 ± 4%, and 5 ± 0.5%, respectively. In the following three generations NPV-induced mortality was not noticed.

Discussion. The level of the virus-positive individuals among the gypsy moth embryos in all occasions was higher than the NPV-induced mortality of insects. Thus, the given results show that the presence of virus among insect does not mean inevitable mortality of their hosts. Perhaps, the viral DNA can completely or partly lose its infectivity but may exist in the analyzed insect samples.

Conclusions. The viral infection can be formed among progeny surviving after inoculation of insects. It can be actuated during three generations of the gypsy moth. The level of the virus-positive individuals among the gypsy moth embryos determined by the PCR method in daughter generations was higher than the NPV-induced mortality of insects.

Molecular genetic techniques and approaches in epidemiological studies were breakthrough in the understanding of the laws, ways, and mechanisms of the spread of the pathogens. However, lack of standard methods makes it difficult to compare results obtained by different scientific groups. In this work we propose to choose one fragment of the TBEV genome as a genetic marker whose sequencing would be both obligatory and sufficient for the molecular epidemiological studies. The best candidate for this purpose may be a fragment of the gene e of 454 nucleotides in length. The deduced amino acid sequence of this fragment was a basis for a new approach for the TBEV differentiation with clusteron being a structural unit (Kovalev and Mukhacheva, 2013). The clusteron approach was proved to be informative for studying the genetic structure of the TBEV-sib population in the Middle Urals. TBE foci were shown to be unique in both quantitative and qualitative composition of the clusterons. The greatest clusteron diversity in the south of the Middle Urals, through the Trans-siberian way, may reflect the history of the colonization, closely associated with the roads between siberia and the european part of Russia. The age of three clusterons did not exceed 50 years, which may indicate an ongoing evolutionary process taking place in the TBEV-sib populations. In turn, their spatial distribution indicates the crucial role of human factors in the spread of the TBEV (Kovalev & Mukhacheva, 2014). The clusteron approach provides formalization of ideas about the structure of the viral populations and could be used not only by researchers but also by epidemiological surveillance services. Unification of the studies of the TBEV on the basis of a standard genetic marker would consolidate the efforts of researchers from different regions of Russia and other countries.

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