Chikungunya (CHIKV), yellow fever (YFV), and Dengue (DENV) are among the most troublesome human health pathogens responsible for hundreds of millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. They are transmitted to human populations by a single mosquito species, Aedes aegypti. Effective human vaccines are not yet available for CHIK, and DENV, and the re-emergence of YFV as a lethal pathogen, in spite of the availability of an effective vaccine, suggests ineffectiveness of vaccination strategies for sustained eradication. Interference with the incubation arboviruses within the arthropod vector is receiving considerable attention as a way to interrupt the viral transmission cycle and reduce the efficiency of transmission to humans. One such approach envisions population replacement of susceptible mosquitoes with those resistant to infection or to halt disease transmission. This approach has distinct advantages of environmentally safety, cost effectiveness, and long-term disease suppression. Transgenic introduction of expressed anti-viral molecules to generate refractoriness in the mosquito vector is now a real possibility. Recent successes reflected in the RIDL approach show significant promise, and can reasonably be expected to be coupled with transgenic refractoriness to establish and maintain transgene effectors in rebound mosquito populations. However, this avenue must necessarily be coupled with ensuring both long term effectiveness and stable transgene expression. Our research is demonstrating that ribozyme (RNA-enzyme) mediated viral suppression can provide an effective means of transgenic immunization against viruses. Recent efforts have confirmed the effectiveness of hammerhead ribozymes and Group I introns in suppressing DENV infection in mosquito cells. The research proposed seeks to build upon our successes in developing anti-viral ribozymes as potent effector genes against arbovirus infections in mosquitoes. In particular, this proposal will focus on developing, optimizing, and validating effective ribozyme suppression strategies against three major emerging and re-emerging disease pathogens vectored by the same mosquito species, Aedes aegypti, DENV, CHIKV, and YF. The ultimate goal is to be able to provide mosquito strains that will be useful in simultaneously eliminating two or more of these viral diseases.

Public Health Relevance

Chikungunya (CHIKV), yellow fever (YFV), and Dengue (DENV) are among the most troublesome single-mosquito transmitted human health pathogens causing hundreds of millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. This proposed research seeks to develop anti-viral ribozymes as means of suppressing the infection of these arbovirus in the mosquito, Aedes aegypti, thereby preventing disease transmission.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01AI097554-04
Application #
8760304
Study Section
Vector Biology Study Section (VB)
Program Officer
Costero-Saint Denis, Adriana
Project Start
2011-12-01
Project End
2015-11-30
Budget Start
2014-12-01
Budget End
2015-11-30
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2015
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Notre Dame
Department
Biology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
824910376
City
Notre Dame
State
IN
Country
United States
Zip Code
46556
Mishra, Priya; Furey, Colleen; Balaraman, Velmurugan et al. (2016) Antiviral Hammerhead Ribozymes Are Effective for Developing Transgenic Suppression of Chikungunya Virus in Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes. Viruses 8:
Carter, James R; Taylor, Samantha; Fraser, Tresa S et al. (2015) Suppression of the Arboviruses Dengue and Chikungunya Using a Dual-Acting Group-I Intron Coupled with Conditional Expression of the Bax C-Terminal Domain. PLoS One 10:e0139899
Nawtaisong, Pruksa; Fraser, Mark E; Carter, James R et al. (2015) Trans-splicing group I intron targeting hepatitis C virus IRES mediates cell death upon viral infection in Huh7.5 cells. Virology 481:223-34
Carter, James R; Nawtaisong, Pruksa; Balaraman, Velmurugan et al. (2014) Design and analysis of hammerhead ribozyme activity against an artificial gene target. Methods Mol Biol 1103:57-66
Carter, James R; Keith, James H; Fraser, Tresa S et al. (2014) Effective suppression of dengue virus using a novel group-I intron that induces apoptotic cell death upon infection through conditional expression of the Bax C-terminal domain. Virol J 11:111
Carter, James R; Balaraman, Velmurugan; Kucharski, Cheryl A et al. (2013) A novel dengue virus detection method that couples DNAzyme and gold nanoparticle approaches. Virol J 10:201