Each human is chronically infected with up to 10 viruses at some time in life.
Two of the most common: the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis, and the recently discovered Saffold virus, which causes early childhood infection.
Tom Petro, Ph.D., wanted to learn more about the mechanism of these chronic infections.
To do so, the professor of microbiology and immunology at the College of Dentistry began to investigate the role played by the interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3) gene, which is expressed in macrophages, the immune system's first line of defense to viral infection.
He used two mouse models – one that is naturally susceptible to macrophage infection by Theiler's Murine Encephalomyelitis Virus (TMEV), which is related to Saffold and can cause chronic inflammation in the brain, a condition that closely resembles multiple sclerosis in humans. The other model is resistant to chronic infection of the virus.
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| Ph.D. student Tyler Moore looks through the microscope at virus infected cells to see if a cytopathic effect of the cells will lead to cell death. |
He infected them both with TMEV and found that the IRF3 response was dysfunctional in the mouse susceptible to infection and found the genetic basis for the difference in IRF3 behavior. "I believe this contributes to its natural susceptibility to TMEV," Dr. Petro said.
By now Dr. Petro was in collaboration with Deb Brown, Ph.D., assistant professor at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a viral immunologist at the Nebraska Center for Virology. Dr. Brown's reviewers on grants and papers wanted to see if her findings with the influenza virus also were valid for other viruses – like TMEV.
"The collaboration made sense," Dr. Petro said. "There are so few immunologists at UNL, and at UNMC for that matter, that collaboration is a necessity."
They received a seed grant from the Nebraska Center for Virology to foster collaboration science. The team has two joint publications and is at work on a third manuscript.
Together, their work may give insight into the cause of chronic viral infection and perhaps even multiple sclerosis in humans.