Abstract Dr. Moore
Innate Immunity to Viral Infection in C. elegans
Disease results in part from the physiological processes in the host that respond to viral infection. Recently the Chow laboratory has developed a disease model of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) infection in the nematode C. elegans. Infection in C. elegans leads to a reduced brood size in the infected adult and a prolonging of the developmental stages in the infected larvae. Furthermore, they have shown that disease development is dependent on viral infection. Using this model, the components of a set of physiological pathways, which are likely to influence viral infection and disease development - the innate immune responses, will be studied. The Specific Aim of this proposal is to examine the potential roles of the apoptosis and RNAi pathways as potential antiviral defense mechanisms in C. elegans.
Host factors clearly influence disease development after viral infection. The long-term objectives of these studies are to understand the contributions of different molecular pathways which integrate to yield the multi-cellular responses that often govern whether an organism sustains lasting damage or recovers from a viral infection.
Updated 10/31/2005
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