Cowpox virus

DNA viruses Poxviruses Variola Vaccinia Large particles 200 x 250nm complex symmetry Variola is the smallpox virus. It produces a systemic infection with a characteristic vesicular rash affecting the face, arms and legs, and has a high mortality rate. Vaccinia has been derived from the cowpox virus and is used to immunize against smallpox... 

Cowpox—Virus related to the smallpox virus, it causes a mild disease in cows and humans and is used to protect people against smallpox. 

Apart from lAPs, there are several nonmammalian regulators of caspases, which are active-site specific inhibitors (Callus and Vaux, 2007). One example is a serpin from the cowpox virus, cytokine response modifier A (crmA). CrmA forms a covalent complex with the initiator caspase-1 and -8 resulting in irreversible inhibition of these caspases. It also inhibits caspase-6 but less efficiently (Dobo et al., 2006). The baculoviral protein p35 is a broad spectrum caspase inhibitor that irreversibly inactivates caspases (Bump et al., 1995 Fisher et al., 1999). 

The term vaccination originated with the smallpox vaccine. In 1796, Edward Tenner developed an effective method for producing smallpox immunity by inoculating people with material from a cowpox lesion. He named the method vaccination, based on vacca, the Latin word for cow. During the nineteenth century, vaccinia virus, a related but genetically distinct Orthopoxvirus, replaced the cowpox virus in the vaccine (25). 

Viral chemokine inhibitor VCCI/ORFB Orthopoxvirus Cowpox virus p32 High-affinity inhibitory binding of all / chemokines... 

But this was not the first description of the possible association since an experienced inoculator by the name of Dr. Fewster had sent a report to the Medical Society of London in 1765 entitled Cowpox and its ability to prevent smallpox. It is also alleged that a Dorestshire farmer, Benjamin Jesty, inoculated his wife and two sons using cowpox virus taken from an infected udder. Jenner s own experimental contribution was much more scientific, if wholly unethical by today s standards. In a letter of July 1796 sent to his friend, the wine merchant Edward Gardner, he described his first experiments carried out in May 1796 ... 

The significance of Jenner s experiments was quickly appreciated by physicians in London, and he was encouraged to publish his findings in 1798 in a report entitled An inquiry into causes and effects of the variolae vacci-nae. Jenner invented this name for the cowpox virus on the assumption that... 

Particularly disturbing is the fact that another scientist, Mark Buller at Saint Louis University, has picked up on these experiments and carried them one step further by increasing the lethality of the mousepox virus and by planning to carry out similar manipulations in the cowpox virus.2... 

Now he has apparently gone one step further with plans to alter the cowpox virus, which can infect humans, in a similar way.34 Buller asserted, however, that this virus would only be lethal in mice and not in humans, because he used the mouse IL-4 gene, which is specific for only the mouse immune system. The head of the Australian research team, Ian Ramshaw, maintains that there is no reason to do the cowpox experiments. He further cautions that while viruses containing the mouse IL-4 gene should not be lethal in humans, recombinant viruses can have unexpected effects.35 Indeed, it has been pointed out36 that these experiments fall into several categories listed by the National Research Council Report as being research of particular concern.37... 

Komiyama, T., Ray, C.A., Pickup, D.J., Howard, A.D., Thornberry, N.A., Peterson, E.P. and Salvesen, G. (1994) Inhibition of interleukin-1 beta converting enzyme by the cowpox virus serpin CrmA. An example of cross-class inhibition./. Biol. Chem. 269 19331-19337. 

Ray, C.A., Black, R.A., Kronheim, S.R., Greenstreet, T.A., Sleath, RR., Salvesen, G.S. and Pickup, D.J. (1992) Viral inhibition of inflammation cowpox virus encodes an inhibitor of the interleukin-1 beta converting enzyme. Cell 69 597-604. 

Fig. 27-5. Cytoplasmic inclusion bodies in cells infected with Orthopoxviruses, (a) B-type (pale-red, irregular) inclusion, or Guarnieri, bodies, and A-type (large eosinophilic, with halo) inclusion bodies in ectodermal cells of the chorioallantoic membrane, in a pock produced by cowpox virus. A number of nucleated erythrocytes are in the ectoderm and free in the mesoderm, and the surface of the pock is ulcerated. Hematoxylin-eosin stain, (b) This section of the skin of a patient with hemorrhagic-type smallpox shows Guarnieri bodies and free erythrocytes below an early vesicle. Hematoxylin-eosin stain. Photographs Reprinted with permission from Fenner F, Henderson DA, Arita I, Jezek Z, Ladnyi ID. Smallpox and Its Eradication. Geneva, Switzerland World Health Organization 1988 85.

Kitamoto N, Tanimoto S, Hiroi K, et al. Monoclonal antibodies to cowpox virus Polypeptide analysis of several major antigens. J Gen Virol. 1987 68 239-246. 

Carfi A, Smith CA, Smolak PJ et al. Structure of a soluble secreted chemokine inhibitor vCCI (p35) from cowpox virus. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1999 96 12379-12383. 

Smith VP, Bryant NA, Alcami A. Ectromelia, vaccinia and cowpox viruses encode secreted interleukin-18- binding proteins. J Gen Virol 2000 81 1223-1230. 

Cell mediated immunity Cowpox virus CXC chemokine receptor CXC ligand... 

Methisazone 6.19) (l-methylisatin-3-thiosemicarbazone, Marboran ) inhibits the multiplication of vaccinia virus in experimental animals. The antiviral action is extraordinarily high. Mice infected intracerebrally with 1000 mean lethal doses (LD50) of vaccinia (cowpox) virus required only 0.5 mg/kg for protection, and only 10 mg/kg was needed for protection against variola major... 

Hu FQ, Smith CA, Pickup DJ. Cowpox virus contains two copies of an early gene encoding a soluble secreted form of the Type 11 TNF receptor. Virology 1994 204(l) 343-356. 

Smith CA, Hu FQ, Smith TD et al. Cowpox virus genome encodes a second soluble homologue of cellular TNF receptors, distinct from CtmB, that binds TNF but not LT alpha. Virology 1996 223(1) 132-147. 

Panus JF, Smith CA, Ray CA et al. Cowpox virus encodes a fifth member of the tumor necrosis factor receptor family a soluble, secreted CD30 homologue. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2002 99 12) 8348-8353. 

Gileva IP, Nepomnyashchikh TS, Antonets DV et al. Properties of the recombinant TNF-binding proteins from variola, monkeypox and cowpox viruses are different. Biochim Biophys Acta 2006 1764(11) 1710-1718. 

The first apoptotic inhibitor identified was a viral cross-class cysteine and serine protease inhibitor isolated from Cowpox virus, called Cytokine response modifier A (CrmA) or Serine protease inhibitor-2 (Spi-2). CrmA will be described in greater detail in a later section of this... 

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