Also known as human herpesvirus 5. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a common virus that can infect almost anyone. Most people don't know they have CMV because it rarely causes symptoms. However, if you're pregnant or have a weakened immune system, CMV is cause for concern.
Once infected with CMV, your body retains the virus for life. However, CMV usually remains dormant if you're healthy. CMV spreads through body fluids, such as blood, saliva, urine, semen and breast milk. People with weak immune systems have a greater risk of becoming ill from CMV. If you're pregnant and develop an active infection, you can pass the virus to your baby.
There's no cure for CMV, but drugs can help treat newborns and people with weak immune systems (Mayo Clinic - CMV).
3. Host Ranges and Animal Models
Humans
II. Vaccine Related Pathogen Genes
1. Glycoprotein B
Gene Name :
Glycoprotein B
Sequence Strain (Species/Organism) :
Human betaherpesvirus 5
Efficacy:
Neutralizing antibody was developed, and the percent reduction of input infectivity in 1:100 diluted sera was 74.5% in three-times immunized groups. The induction of neutralizing antibody with HCMV gB in this study might be useful to attenuate or prevent HCMV infection (Hwang et al., 1999).
2. Human cytomegalovirus DNA vaccine VCL-CB01 encoding phosphoprotein 65 and gB
Efficacy:
Preclinical investigation of the hCMV gB/pp65 DNA vaccine was initially conducted in mice. When formulated in PBS, lone gB and pp65 plasmids were highly immunogenic, but vaccination with the bivalent vaccine reduced immune responses to each antigen by 2.8- and 4-fold of the lone values, respectively. However, formulating the bivalent vaccine with 02A significantly (p = 0.048) increased the antigen-specific immune responses relative to those induced with the bivalent vaccine in PBS, as well as completely abrogating a decrease in pp65-specific T-cell responses (Schleiss, 2009).
IV. References
1. Hwang et al., 1999: Hwang ES, Kwon KB, Park JW, Kim DJ, Park CG, Cha CY. Induction of neutralizing antibody against human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) with DNA-mediated immunization of HCMV glycoprotein B in mice. Microbiology and immunology. 1999; 43(3); 307-310. [PubMed: 10338203].
3. Tang et al., 2017: Tang A, Freed DC, Li F, Meschino S, Prokop M, Bett A, Casimiro D, Wang D, Fu TM. Functionally inactivated dominant viral antigens of human cytomegalovirus delivered in replication incompetent adenovirus type 6 vectors as vaccine candidates. Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics. 2017; 13(12); 2763-2771. [PubMed: 28494195].
