Immunisation Against Infection
Sir Arthur Newsholme in Evolution of Preventive Medicine, 2015
In the east it had long been known that inoculation of small pox virus under favourable conditions produced a milder attack than disease arising from infection naturally derived. In 1718 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had her son inoculated successfully in Adrianople; in 1722, two members of the British royal family were similarly inoculated, and the practice rapidly spread. In 1768 Dr. Dimsdale inoculated Catherine, Empress of Russia; and between 1750 and the introduction of vaccination by William Jenner in 1799, a large part of the total population was inoculated. By improved procedures the risk of death from the inoculated disease was very greatly reduced; but in the absence of strict isolation of the inoculated, they became a source of danger to all who were not similarly inoculated, or who had not suffered from natural small pox. That this danger was realised, is evidenced in Dr. Thomas Bateman’s Reports on the Diseases of London, 1804 to 1816.
Medical theory, medical care, and preventive medicine
Lois N. Magner, Oliver J. Kim in A History of Medicine, 2017
Vaccinia virus made the eradication of smallpox possible, but the origin of vaccinia remains as great a puzzle as the nature of the relationships among smallpox, cowpox, and vaccinia viruses. Some virologists have defined vaccinia as a species of laboratory virus that has no natural reservoir. Smallpox, cowpox, and vaccinia viruses are all members of the genus Orthopoxvirus, but they are distinct species and cannot be transformed into each other. Horsepox was extinct by the time immunological identification of particular strains was possible. Because cowpox and horsepox were rare and sporadic, virologists think that wild rodents may have been the natural reservoir of an ancestral poxvirus.
Immunization
Julius P. Kreier in Infection, Resistance, and Immunity, 2022
Since the eighteenth century, a large number of immunizing agents against a variety of diseases have been developed and are currently available. Although none have served as the basis for eradicating a disease as has smallpox vaccination, many have had a major impact on the epidemiology of the infectious diseases they were designed to control (Table 19.1). As a tribute to Jenner′s use of cow-pox virus to prevent smallpox we have adopted the term vaccination as a general term for agents used to immunize against disease. In this chapter, we will discuss the general principles of vaccination, the types of vaccines available, development and production of vaccines, and future prospects for development of vaccines.
Recent advances in the diagnosis monkeypox: implications for public health
Published in Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics, 2022
The world is better equipped to respond to a monkeypox outbreak than it was two decades ago. On 24 May 2003, the Wisconsin Division of Public Health was notified of a three-year-old girl hospitalized in central Wisconsin with cellulitis and fever after a bite from a prairie dog on May 13 [59]. The animal became ill on May 13, died one week later, and an enlarged submandibular lymph node was submitted for bacterial culture. On 2 June 2003, the Wisconsin Division of Public Health was notified of a poxvirus in a skin lesion from the mother of the three-year-old girl, who developed symptoms on May 26 [59]. Two days later, on June 4, orthopoxvirus was visualized by negative-stain electron microscopy of cell-culture supernatants. On June 9, polymerase chain reaction analyses of tissue- and virus-culture supernatants from the mother were positive for monkeypox-virus DNA signatures [59].
Potential therapeutic targets for Mpox: the evidence to date
Published in Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets, 2023
Siddappa N Byrareddy, Kalicharan Sharma, Shrikesh Sachdev, Athreya S. Reddy, Arpan Acharya, Kaylee M. Klaustermeier, Christian L Lorson, Kamal Singh
Details of the MPXV replication cycle steps have not been established. Therefore, other well-studied and closely related poxviruses, such as VACV, must be used as a surrogate for our understanding of the MPXV replication cycle. Two distinct forms of infectious poxvirus virions can infect a host cell: (i) a mature virion (MV), and (ii) an extracellular enveloped virion (EV) (Figure 1). MV has a single membrane, whereas the EV has an additional outer membrane [18]. The additional EV outer membrane is disrupted prior to fusion, rendering EV similar to MV at the point of entry into the host cell [18]. A multitude (20–30) of VACV proteins constitute the MV membrane, while the EV has ~ 6 additional proteins within the outer membrane. Entry and fusion of the MVs and EVs involve multiple viral and cell-surface proteins [19–21]. In addition, the attachment of MV and EV differs significantly [18]. For example, proteinase treatment disrupts the binding of MV but not EV [18,22,23]. Thus, poxvirus entry and fusion are multiplayer and complex processes, making it challenging to select feasible antiviral targets from many viral proteins.
Deficiency of Selected Cathepsins Does Not Affect the Inhibitory Action of ECTV on Immune Properties of Dendritic Cells
Published in Immunological Investigations, 2020
Magdalena Bossowska-Nowicka, Matylda B. Mielcarska, Justyna Struzik, Agnieszka Jackowska-Tracz, Michał Tracz, Karolina P. Gregorczyk-Zboroch, Małgorzata Gieryńska, Felix N. Toka, Lidia Szulc-Dąbrowska
Orthopoxviruses belong to the Poxviridae family and are linear, double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses with a size of 130–360 kbp. However, only about half of the virus genes are essential for replication. Some orthopoxviruses, like vaccinia virus (VACV), monkeypox virus (MPXV) and cowpox virus (CPXV), have evolved ability to infect a very broad range of animals (including mammals, birds, reptiles and insects), but others, like variola virus (VARV) and ectromelia virus (ECTV) are very restricted to their natural hosts, human and mouse, respectively (Lefkowitz et al., 2006; Smith and Kotwal, 2002; Zehender et al., 2018). Since the eradication of smallpox (caused by VARV) in 1979 and cessation of vaccinations, the world population is increasingly becoming susceptible to poxvirus infection. Zoonotic poxviruses have been reported in the last two decades, e.g., emerging human MPXV in Africa, North America and United Kingdom, CPXV infection in cats and exotic animals and humans, cases of VACV infection in humans in South America and India (Essbauer et al., 2010; Vaughan et al., 2018). There are no antiviral treatments to all these poxvirus infections and the current vaccine against smallpox, although effective, has some safety concern. Hence, it calls for maintained efforts to find potential therapeutic targets of poxviruses and improve safety of the existing vaccine. Understanding the biology of poxviruses may lead to determination of their unique immune evasion strategies exploited especially in their natural hosts.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Cowpox
- DNA
- Molluscum Contagiosum Virus
- Orthopoxvirus
- Smallpox
- Virus
- Parapoxvirus
- Yatapoxvirus
- Vaccinia
- Mpox