The purpose ofthe Virology and Technology Core is two fold: 1) to provide facilities and technical assistance for the conduction of virus infections and assays in mice, and 2) to facilitate the use of novel assays that we have developed by each ofthe Projects to examine immune responses against alloantigens. One room within a Biosafety level two/three (BSL2/3) Biocontainment Suite will be assigned for work with viruses, for their subsequent surveillance and monitoring, and for the bleeding of mice and harvesting of tissues. For viral and immunological assays, I have a BSL2 laboratory area that has a separate attached tissue culture room equipped with incubators and laminar flow hoods for tissue culture work. This Core will be responsible for the growth, preparation, purification, and assay of viruses, maintaining stocks of peptide epitopes, and for the preparation of antigen-specific MHC-multimer reagents (MHC-lg-dimers and MHCtetramers). The Core will provide reagents and training for assays to quantify and characterize virus-specific T cells including the use of MHC-multimers, T cell proliferation assays, intracellular cytokine assays, and antiviral CTL assays. The new technology to be used include in vivo cytotoxicity assays to measure NK and T cell activity against allogeneic tissues, and intracellular cytokine assays to examine naive, effector/memory, and tolerized alloreactive T cells. The services to be provided by the Core will be available to all Project Laboratories, and the Core will also be responsible for training personnel to perform assays.

Public Health Relevance

The Core will provide essential handling and training in the use of dangerous infectious agents that riequire specialized approaches for safe handling. These viruses have been associated with human disease, and have been found to be detrimental to survival of grafts in the clinic. The availability of these viruses will permit their effect on graft survival using newly developed drugs to be studied in appropriate animal models.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Type
Research Program Projects (P01)
Project #
5P01AI046629-14
Application #
8661687
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZAI1-PTM-I)
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2014-06-01
Budget End
2015-05-31
Support Year
14
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
$137,760
Indirect Cost
$54,015
Name
University of Massachusetts Medical School Worcester
Department
Type
DUNS #
603847393
City
Worcester
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
01655
Watkin, Levi B; Mishra, Rabinarayan; Gil, Anna et al. (2017) Unique influenza A cross-reactive memory CD8 T-cell receptor repertoire has a potential to protect against EBV seroconversion. J Allergy Clin Immunol 140:1206-1210
Che, Jenny W; Daniels, Keith A; Selin, Liisa K et al. (2017) Heterologous Immunity and Persistent Murine Cytomegalovirus Infection. J Virol 91:
Aslan, Nuray; Watkin, Levi B; Gil, Anna et al. (2017) Severity of Acute Infectious Mononucleosis Correlates with Cross-Reactive Influenza CD8 T-Cell Receptor Repertoires. MBio 8:
Urban, Stina L; Berg, Leslie J; Welsh, Raymond M (2016) Type 1 interferon licenses naïve CD8 T cells to mediate anti-viral cytotoxicity. Virology 493:52-9
Hasgur, Suheyla; Aryee, Ken Edwin; Shultz, Leonard D et al. (2016) Generation of Immunodeficient Mice Bearing Human Immune Systems by the Engraftment of Hematopoietic Stem Cells. Methods Mol Biol 1438:67-78
Samanta, S; Sun, H; Goel, H L et al. (2016) IMP3 promotes stem-like properties in triple-negative breast cancer by regulating SLUG. Oncogene 35:1111-21
Bryce, Paul J; Falahati, Rustom; Kenney, Laurie L et al. (2016) Humanized mouse model of mast cell-mediated passive cutaneous anaphylaxis and passive systemic anaphylaxis. J Allergy Clin Immunol 138:769-779
Cohen, Jessica L; Shen, Yuefei; Aouadi, Myriam et al. (2016) Peptide- and Amine-Modified Glucan Particles for the Delivery of Therapeutic siRNA. Mol Pharm 13:964-978
Tencerova, Michaela; Aouadi, Myriam; Vangala, Pranitha et al. (2015) Activated Kupffer cells inhibit insulin sensitivity in obese mice. FASEB J 29:2959-69
Gil, Anna; Yassai, Maryam B; Naumov, Yuri N et al. (2015) Narrowing of human influenza A virus-specific T cell receptor ? and ? repertoires with increasing age. J Virol 89:4102-16

Showing the most recent 10 out of 118 publications