# RESPIRATORY SYNCYTIAL VIRUS GENE PRODUCTS

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM · 1993 · $243,462

## Abstract

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from the applicant's abstract):  The paramyxovirus
respiratory syncytial (RS) virus is the major viral cause of
bronchiolitis  and pneumonia in infants and children and no effective
vaccine is available.  The situation is compounded by the fact that
maternal antibody does not  confer solid immunity on neonates and natural
infection affords only partial  protection against frequent repeat
infections.To address this major public  health problem, Dr. Wertz's
research program over the last 10 years has  focused on the molecular
biology of RS virus, characterizing the viral genes  in some detail, and
examining the individual immune responses to 9 of the 10  viral gene
products.  But progress, though substantial, has been hindered by  the
fact that it has not been possible to engineer mutations into the genomes
of non-segmented negative strand RNA viruses such as RS virus, and to
recover  infectious mutants.  However, a recent breakthrough in the work
on vesicular  stomatitis virus (VSV) has changed this situation.  Dr.
Wertz has developed  a method to recover infectious VSV defective
interfering particles from cDNA  clones.  The method has general
applicability, so for the first time it  appears feasible to construct
a full-length cDNA clone of the RS virus genome,  and from it to recover
infectious virus.  Plans to pursue this goal are  presented in this
proposal, together with the initial ways that the infectious  clone will
be used to address outstanding problems in RS virus biology and
pathogenesis.  The technology developed with VSV will be applied to RS
virus  to carry out reverse genetic analysis of the cis- and trans-acting
factors  involved in RS virus RNA replication, nucleocapsid assembly and
budding of infectious particles, and to generate a replicable full-length
genomic RNA  from a cDNA clone in order to address crucial questions in
the biology of  this pathogen.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 3129659
- **Project number:** 2R01AI020181-12
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
- **SAM.gov UEI:** YND4PLMC9AN7
- **Principal Investigator:** Gail Wiliams Wertz
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1993
- **Award amount:** $243,462
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 1987-02-01 → 1998-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3129659

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 3129659, RESPIRATORY SYNCYTIAL VIRUS GENE PRODUCTS (2R01AI020181-12). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/3129659. Licensed CC0.

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