Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | Reverse Genetics of Chikungunya Virus for ldentification of Therapeutic Targets and Validation in Mouse Model. |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Kanchan Bhardwaj, Manav Rachna International Institute Of Research And Studies, Faridabad, Haryana |
Timeline Start Year : | 2022 |
Timeline End Year : | 2025 |
Contact info : | kanchbhardwaj@yahoo.com |
Details
Executive Summary : | Chikungunya virus has become a global pathogen, which spreads through the bite of infected mosquitos. Although, the mortality rate associated with CHIKV infection is low, it is a serious public health concern and an economic burden for low-income countries, for multiple reasons: Acute clinical symptoms of the infection include fever with inflammatory arthralgia, myalgia, headache and rash, affecting quality of life and missed work days. 40-50 % of the infected individuals develop chronic symptoms, which can last for years and include persistent joint pain, musculoskeletal abnormalities and chronic inflammatory rheumatism again affecting quality of life, an enormous population of an estimated 1.3 billion people lives in areas with high risk of CHIKV transmission. Further, the virus has re-emerged and is capable of re-emergence with improved fitness through adaptive mutations. In order to limit virus spread, vector control has proven difficult. There are efforts to develop antivirals and vaccines against chikungunya virus. However, there are no specific and licensed treatments available for it. This proposal is to employ the approach of reverse genetics towards understanding virus biology, identification of therapeutic candidates which could be used for the development of live attenuated vaccine and/or can act as targets for small molecule inhibitors. Availability of the following resources with us and our preliminary work will be useful for the proposed project: (i) we have constructed an infectious clone of the chikungunya virus (clinical isolate IND_06_Guj), verified it through sequencing and virus has been recovered from cell culture. We also have two recombinant infectious clones, one expressing the Green Fluorescent Protein and other expressing the Luciferase gene to be used as tools for the measurement of neutralizing antibody titers and virus spread in mice, respectively (ii) We have also optimized assays for chikungunya virus (CHIKV) growth in cell culture and measurement of pathogenesis, virus spread and host response in mice. (iii) Targets have been selected through bioinformatic analysis and suggestions from the available literature. |
Total Budget (INR): | 18,30,000 |
Organizations involved