Hanns-Joachim Rziha

Persistence of Borna disease virus-specific nucleic acid in blood of psychiatric patient

Evidence of Borna disease virus (BDV) in patients with psychiatric diseases has been found by several researchers; BDV-specific antigen and nucleic acid has been reported in brain tissue,1,2 and in the blood of psychiatric patients.3 The latter finding is uncertain, because detection of BDV antigen or nucleic acid in blood seems to be difficult.4,5 We report BDV-specific nucleic acid in the blood of a patient with a psychiatric disease. A man aged 47 years had had multiple physical complaints (pain, gastric symptoms, dizziness, and sleep disturbances) for 28 years.

Orf virus interferes with MHC class I surface expression by targeting vesicular transport and Golgi

BackgroundThe Orf virus (ORFV), a zoonotic Parapoxvirus, causes pustular skin lesions in small ruminants (goat and sheep). Intriguingly, ORFV can repeatedly infect its host, despite the induction of a specific immunity. These immune modulating and immune evading properties are still unexplained.ResultsHere, we describe that ORFV infection of permissive cells impairs the intracellular transport of MHC class I molecules (MHC I) as a result of structural disruption and fragmentation of the Golgi apparatus. Depending on the duration of infection, we observed a pronounced co-localization of MHC I and COP-I vesicular structures as well as a reduction of MHC I surface expression of up to 50%. These subversion processes are associated with early ORFV gene expression and are accompanied by disturbed carbohydrate trimming of post-ER MHC I. The MHC I population remaining on the cell surface shows an extended half-life, an effect that might be partially controlled also by late ORFV genes.ConclusionsThe presented data demonstrate that ORFV down-regulates MHC I surface expression in infected cells by targeting the late vesicular export machinery and the structure and function of the Golgi apparatus, which might aid to escape cellular immune recognition.