6^th Euro Virology Congress and Expo March 10-12, 2016 Madrid, Spain

Ana Godinho-Santos has a degree in Microbiology and a Master degree in Applied Microbiology. She is currently a Doctoral candidate at Faculty of Pharmacy - University of Lisbon, expected to complete the PhD degree requirements by March 2016.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) relies on the host cell machinery to complete its life cycle. Several helper factors have been identified in expectation that a better understanding of host-HIV interactions would lead to novel antiviral targets. As the characterization for many of these proteins is still limited, we aimed to depict the contribution of CIB2, previously identified as helper factor, as well as the potential contribution of its homolog, CIB1. Knockdown of both CIB1 and CIB2 in shRNA-transduced cell populations strongly impaired viral replication in target cells, recognizing these proteins as non-redundant HIV-1 helper factors. Also, a single-round cycle assay demonstrated that normal levels of CIB1 and CIB2 are required for HIV-1 envelope-mediated process. In fact, both X4 and R5 viral strains seem to be dependent on CIB1 and CIB2 expression levels, since infectivity of X4- and R5-enveloped particles was affected. Moreover, CIB1- and CIB2-knockdown populations displayed reduced viral fusion efficiency when compared to untransduced population, indicating virus-free entry impairment. Furthermore, virus-transfer through cell-cell contacts was decreased after co-culture of infected donor cells with CIB1- and CIB2-knockdown target cells. Flow cytometry showed that surface expression of some key players of both routes of viral entry was altered in CIBs-depleted populations, namely co-receptor CXCR4 and integrin α4β7. Taken together, these studies revealed for the first time that CIB1 is a HIV-1 helper factor along with CIB2, and suggest that both CIB1 and CIB2 facilitate HIV-1 entry in natural target cells possibly through modulation of CXCR4 and α4β7.

Belsy Acosta Herrera has graduated as General Physician in 1993. She has started her Residence in Microbiology at the Institute of Tropical Medicine Pedro Kouri (IPK). Her current position at the IPK is Medical Doctor, Specialist in Microbiology in the field of Virology. She has also participated in many meeting, courses and training in different countries and participated in more than 40 national and international congresses with the presentation of more than 70 papers and conferences related to viral respiratory infections. She has published more than 40 papers as author or co-author and obtained 8 Scientific Awards nominated by the Cuban Academy of Sciences.

Influenza, the most contagious of the acute respiratory infections is considered like an emergent and re-emergent illness due to the wide circulation of old and new variants among the world population. Vaccination is currently the only practical means of reducing or counteracting this burden of mortality and morbidity in the community. The production of an optimal influenza vaccine requires the continuous global monitoring of influenza by the National Influenza Centre. The Cuban National Influenza Center has the responsibility to carry out the national virological surveillance of influenza and others respiratory viruses. During the past 10 years, it had been working together with national health authorities on the planning, implementation and improvement of the national surveillance program of acute respiratory infections. From, 2009 to 2014, 38935 respiratory samples from patient with clinical diagnosis of acute respiratory infection were processed using an algorithm of molecular diagnosis. The total of positive samples to influenza viruses were characterized molecularly including nucleic acid sequencing. The major positivity was detected for influenza A virus, particularly for the influenza A (H1N1) pdm09, following influenza B viruses. In 2012, we detected the reintroduction of influenza B lineage Yamagata associated with a high rate of morbidity. Most characterized influenza A viruses matched with the vaccine strains with the exception of the circulating viruses during the season 2013-2014. These results suggest a low preventive effect of the seasonal influenza vaccine for the season 2014-2015. This situation should be kept in mind given its implications for clinical practice and public health.

Ana Miguel Matos has completed her PhD in 2011 at Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Coimbra, where she currently works as an Associate Professor at Microbiology department. She has published some papers in reputed journals and several abstracts in both national and international conferences. Further, she is also an Associate Director of the Clinical Laboratory from Faculty of Pharmacy of University of Coimbra, Portugal.

The main aim of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence of hepatitis E virus (HEV) active infection in farm bred pigs from central region of Portugal in order to access the risk for the public health caused by the consumption of pork meat. Forty outdoor farm raised pigs were included in the study. The study group included 25 adult and 15 young animals. Fecal samples were collected from each animal, shortly after emission. All samples were submitted to nucleic acid extraction followed by RT-PCR Real Time amplification, aiming the detection of HEV genome. Positive and negative controls were included in all experiments. After amplification process, no HEV-RNA was detected in any of the evaluated fecal samples. These results point to the absence of active HEV infection in the farm bred pigs from the central region of Portugal and therefore suggest that no risk of acquiring HEV infection may exists associated with the consumption of this kind of meat. Nevertheless, and despite no active viral infection with HEV was detected in the studied animals, seroepidemiological studies have not been performed and risk of possible zoonotic infections in our country cannot be completely discarded.

Liying Ma is a Professor and Leader of Pathogen Biology Branch of Department of Immunology and Virology of National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, PI in State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. She was graduated from West China University of Medicine for her PhD degree in 1998. During 2001-2005, she was trained in Sixth University of Paris and New York University and Blood Center. In 2005, she came back to China. Her research focuses on HIV pathogenesis and drug resistance. She is undertaking National Natural Science Foundation Projects, NIH-NSF SINO-US Cooperation Project as a PI, European Seventh Framework Program as co-PI. Her working group major on systematic studying on evolution and viral fitness of HIV/HCV epidemic strains in China, HIV, HIV drug resistance and drug targets combined with free antiretroviral treatment in China. She has published more than 70 papers in AIDS, JAIDS, Nano letters, Retorvirology, JAC, JMC and AAC etc. Five patents were applied so far and two patents were authorized. She got China Preventive Medicine Association of Science and Technology Award and Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Award.

Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) is a rapidly evolving pandemic disease that has increasing importance in China. To characterize the current molecular epidemiology of HCV infection in Beijing, China, whole blood samples and behavioral data were collected from a total of 10,354 subjects, including DUs, MSM and general population, in Beijing from 2010 to 2011. Samples were tested for HCV infection using ELISA and real-time PCR. In total, 217 subjects (2.1%) tested positive for HCV by antibody or vRNA-based testing. HCV prevalence rates for DUs, MSM and general population were, 26.2%, 0.54% and 0.37%, respectively. The 156 HCV RNA positive samples were then sequenced by nested PCR over core/E1 and NS5B regions. Nine HCV genotypes, including 1a, 1b, 2a, 3a, 3b, 6a, 6n, 6u and 6v, were detected. The most prevalent subtypes were 3b (36.09%), 1b (32.54%) and 3a (16.57%). Bayesian evolutionary analysis by sampling trees of sequences of the three major subtypes revealed the origin and history of HCV in Beijing. The origin time of subtype 1b was 2004.1 (1997.7, 2007.7). Subtype 1b showed most sequences from DUs and all sequences from no-DUs were in different groups. Subtype 1b of Beijing and Shanghai may have migration trend or they may have the same evolutionary origins. The origin time of subtype 3a was 2006.5 (1983.4, 2010). They had close relationship with the sequences of Yunnan, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Jiangsu. The origin time of subtype 3b was 2006.2 (2001.4, 2009.2). The migration trend appeared to have been from Yunnan, Guangdong and Hong Kong to Beijing among subtype 3b. Our results suggest that HCV prevalence in Beijing is complicated. The mixing of nine HCV subtypes and the evolution characteristic indicated that the migration pattern of HCV in Beijing is complex. Beijing plays a pivotal role in HCV transmission following a large amount of floating population in China.

Bojian Zheng has completed his PhD at The University of Hong Kong and Postdoctoral studies from McMaster University in Canada. He is currently a Professor working in Department of Microbiology, The University of Hong Kong. He has published more than 180 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of several international journals.

Growing evidence suggests that mutations in the connection domain of the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) can contribute to viral resistance to RT inhibitors. This work is designed to characterize a novel mutation D404N in the connection sub-domain of RT of HIV-1 CRF08_BC subtype on drug resistance, viral replication capacity (RC) and RT activity. Mutation D404N alone or together with the other reported mutations were introduced into an HIV-1 CRF08_BC subtype infectious clone by site-directed mutagenesis. The drug susceptibility to nine RT inhibitors, viral RC and the DNA polymerase activity of viral RT of the constructed virus mutants were investigated. Modeling study using the server SWISS-MODEL was conferred to speculate the possible structure-related drug resistance mechanism of the mutation D404N. Single mutation D404N and H221Y conferred low-level resistance to nevirapine, efavirenz, rilpivirine and zidovudine. Double mutations Y181C/D404N and Y181C/H221Y significantly reduced susceptibility to NNRTIs. The most pronounced resistance to NNRTIs was observed with the triple mutations Y181C/D404N/H221Y. The virus containing a single mutation D404N displayed approximately 50% of RC compared to the wild type (WT) virus. Modeling study suggested that the D404N mutation might abolish the hydrogen bonds between residue 404 and K30 in p51 or K431 in p66, leading to impaired RT subunit structure and enhanced drug resistance. These results indicate D404N to be a novel NNRTI-associated mutation in the HIV-1 CRF08_BC subtype which provides valuable information to monitor clinical RTI resistance.

Sherif A El-Kafrawy has completed his PhD in 1999 from Menoufiya University, Egypt. He was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology at the National Liver Institute, and is now working as an Assistant Professor of Molecular Virology in King Abdulaziz University. He has published more than 25 papers in reputed journals.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has ten genotypes (A-J) and 34 subtypes. These genotypes differ in geographic distribution, HBeAg seroconversion rate, clinical outcome, prognosis, and response to antiviral treatment. The prognosis of chronic HBV (CHB) infection includes hepatic failure, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The introduction of mandatory vaccination in Saudi Arabia have reduced the prevalence in young Saudis, but the prevalence in individuals more than 25 years is about 4%. Studies exploring the evolutionary aspect and molecular variations of HBV in correlation with the development of HCC in Saudi Arabia are very limited. Deep next generation sequencing is more frequently used to investigate low frequency mutations in HBV that might be associated with resistance to antiviral treatment or the development of HCC. We performed deep sequencing on samples from 20 HBV chronically infected patients from Saudi Arabia. Subjects were all of genotype D, positive for HBsAg and negative for HBeAg. A common finding in all samples was the 33 base deletions in the preS region in all cases. Low frequency mutations in the rt-region related to antiviral resistance together with mutations in the pre-core and core regions associated with the development of HCC were detected. The results of these studies as well as their clinical data will be presented.

Eman Mokhtar Marei has completed her PhD from Ain Shams University, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Microbiology (Virology) and Postdoctoral studies from Ain Shams University & Institute of Silviculture and Institute of Water Quality Control at The Technische Universitat Munchen. She is an Assistant Professor in Microbiology Department of Ain Shams University. She has published 7 papers in reputed journals (international & national journals) and 5 papers under publishing.

Three lytic actinophages specific for Streptomyces flavovirens were isolated from Egyptian soil and submitted in the Streptomyces phages database in names Sf1, Sf2 and Sf3 respectively. Phage isolates Sf1, Sf2 and Sf3 produced clear circular single plaques of 2, 1 and 3 mm in diameters, respectively. AFLP had been carried out to distinguish between the three isolates. Twenty seven selective primer pairs had been tested which are a combination of four IRDye-800 labeled EcoRI primers with seven MseI primers. Ten successful primer combinations generated a total of 462 fragments sizes ranging from 82 to 1021 bp long. Three hundred sixty eight fragments were polymorphic (79.7%) and 94 fragments were monomorphic. Principal coordinates analysis was performed to detect the patterns of relationship and isolates were plotted on first three dimensions which 240 (51.9%) fragments were unique (isolation specific). In order to assess the discriminatory power of ten primer combinations used, a variety of marker attributes like polymorphism information content (PIC), marker index (MI) and resolving power (RP) values were calculated. Genotyping data obtained for all 368 polymorphic fragments were used to group the isolates analyzed using the UPGMA-phenogram and principal component analysis (PCA). The UPGMA-phenogram grouped the isolates into two groups the first represent the isolate Sf3 and the second group represent the other two isolates. Isolates Sf1 and Sf3 were send for the whole genome sequencing service.

Oksana F. Blotska, DVM has completed her PhD at the age of 34 years from Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Kyiv, Ukraine. She is Head of the Division of Check and Industrial Virus Strains Support of the Department of Biotechnology and Control of Quality of Viral Preparations of The State Science-Control Institute of Biotechnology and Strains of Microorganisms. She has published more than 30 papers in reputed journals.

Newcastle disease (ND) is the most important infectious viral disease of poultry. The world-wide economic loss from it is 2 to 3 billion USD per year. The industrial poultry farming is rapidly developing in Ukraine. Geographically Ukraine is located in the center of Europe, on the crossing of migration routes of various wild birds - the main natural reservoir of ND agents. Using of vaccines is the most radical method of preventing the ND. It is necessary to control the intensity of post-vaccination immunity and the timing of revaccinations. OIE recommends haemagglutination inhibition (HI) test to assess the level of antibodies following vaccination. Based on HI assay develop and create a test kit for detection of antibodies to ND virus (NDV). We prepared hemagglutinating antigen from strain "LaSota" using embryonated SPF fowl eggs. In order to ensure a high degree of specificity for the antigen, special attention was given to a stabilizer for freeze-drying (the subject of a patent). The specific hemagglutination activity of the obtained antigen amounted to 10-11 log2. The test was performed using the 4HA units of the antigen. Positive control serum activity was in the range of 7- 9 log2. Negative control serum did not give results more than 2 log2. The estimation of the quality indexes of the components of the diagnostic test-kit was performed using harmonized methods. The use of the developed HI test kit for detection of antibodies to NDV helps to maintain the disease-free status of the Ukrainian poultry industry with regard to ND