Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Thessaly, Biopolis-Mezourlo, 41500 Larissa, Greece.
Department of Microbiology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece.
Genes (Basel). 2023 Jan 16;14(1):237. doi: 10.3390/genes14010237.
West Nile virus (WNV) is an emerging neurotropic RNA virus and a member of the genus . Naturally, the virus is maintained in an enzootic cycle involving mosquitoes as vectors and birds that are the principal amplifying virus hosts. In humans, the incubation period for WNV disease ranges from 3 to 14 days, with an estimated 80% of infected persons being asymptomatic, around 19% developing a mild febrile infection and less than 1% developing neuroinvasive disease. Laboratory diagnosis of WNV infection is generally accomplished by cross-reacting serological methods or highly sensitive yet expensive molecular approaches. Therefore, current diagnostic tools hinder widespread surveillance of WNV in birds and mosquitoes that serve as viral reservoirs for infecting secondary hosts, such as humans and equines. We have developed a synthetic biology-based method for sensitive and low-cost detection of WNV. This method relies on toehold riboswitches designed to detect WNV genomic RNA as transcriptional input and process it to GFP fluorescence as translational output. Our methodology offers a non-invasive tool with reduced operating cost and high diagnostic value that can be used for field surveillance of WNV in humans as well as in bird and mosquito populations.
西尼罗河病毒（WNV）是一种新兴的神经嗜性 RNA 病毒，属于 属。该病毒自然存在于一个涉及蚊子作为媒介和鸟类作为主要扩增病毒宿主的地方性循环中。在人类中，WNV 疾病的潜伏期为 3 至 14 天，估计有 80%的感染者无症状，约 19%的人出现轻度发热感染，不到 1%的人出现神经侵袭性疾病。WNV 感染的实验室诊断通常通过交叉反应的血清学方法或高度敏感但昂贵的分子方法来完成。因此，目前的诊断工具阻碍了对作为感染次要宿主（如人类和马）的病毒储存库的鸟类和蚊子中的 WNV 进行广泛监测。我们已经开发了一种基于合成生物学的方法，用于敏感和低成本检测 WNV。该方法依赖于设计用于检测 WNV 基因组 RNA 的 toehold 核糖开关，作为转录输入，并将其处理为 GFP 荧光作为翻译输出。我们的方法提供了一种非侵入性工具，具有降低的运营成本和高诊断价值，可用于人类、鸟类和蚊子种群中 WNV 的现场监测。
