Measles virus (MeV) is the most contagious human respiratory virus, but within natural hosts MeV infections are largely cell-associated. We recently documented how virus-elicited intercellular pores facilitate rapid MeV spread in well-differentiated primary airway epithelia from human donors. Here we seek to characterize the mechanisms that promote airway epithelium entry and rapid cell-to-cell spread. Our central hypothesis is that MeV developed cell-based strategies for both processes.
In aim 1 we will characterize which myeloid cells transfer infectivity to airway epithelia, and how.
In aim 2 we will identify the cytoskeletal structures and processes co-opted by MeV to promote its rapid epithelial spread. Our studies will reveal how MeV spreads more rapidly than other viruses in human airway epithelia, which accounts for its exceptional contagion efficiency.
Here we seek to better characterize the mechanisms that promote efficient MeV entry in the airway epithelium, and its rapid cell-to-cell spread. Knowledge of these mechanisms is important because they underpin the spread of the most transmissible human respiratory disease.
| Cifuentes-Muñoz, Nicolás; Dutch, Rebecca Ellis; Cattaneo, Roberto (2018) Direct cell-to-cell transmission of respiratory viruses: The fast lanes. PLoS Pathog 14:e1007015 |
| Singh, Brajesh K; Li, Ni; Mark, Anna C et al. (2016) Cell-to-Cell Contact and Nectin-4 Govern Spread of Measles Virus from Primary Human Myeloid Cells to Primary Human Airway Epithelial Cells. J Virol 90:6808-6817 |
