Viral Infectious Diseases Unit

Currently, infections account for about 30% of annual mortalities worldwide, and it is feared that the ratio may rise abruptly in the future. This is because new viral infections have recently emerged one after another. One representative of such infections is AIDS, which kills about three million people every year. As well as human immunodeficiency virus type I (HIV-I) is the etiologic agents of AIDS, human T cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I) induced adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) and bovine leukemia virus (BLV) induced enzootic bovine leukosis (EBL) constitute a unique subgroup within the retrovirus family. The main subject of our unit is to understand the molecular mechanisms of AIDS induced by HIV-I and leukemogenesis induced by HTLV-I and BLV, and, in addition, to develop new methods for prevention for these viral pathogenesis. In preparation for the coming threats from newly-emerging viruses, our unit focuses on the development of a new drug targeting a replication mechanism shared by many viruses.

Research Subjects

• Pathogenesis of HIV-1-induced AIDS and development of anti-HIV-1 strategy
• Mechanisms of leukemogeneses by human and bovine leukemia viruses and development of new methods for prevention
• Molecular mechanisms of replication of influenza virus and development of new antiviral strategy

Publications

1. Sasaki Y., Hagiwara K., Kakisaka M., Yamada K., Murakami T., Aida Y.:
   "Importin α3/Qip1 Is Involed in Multiplication of Mutant Influenza Virus with Alanine Mutation at Amino Acid 9 Independently of Nuclear Transport Function"
   PLoS ONE, 8(1): e55765 (2013)
2. Giovambattista G., Takeshima S., Ripoli M., Matsumoto M., Franco L., Saito H., Onuma M., Aida Y.:
   "Characterization of bovine MHC class II DRB3 diversity in Latin American Creole cattle breeds"
   Gene in press
3. Miyasaka T., Takeshima S., Jimba M., Matsumoto Y., Kobayashi N., Matsuhashi T., Sentsui H., Aida Y.:
   "Identification of bovine leukocyte antigen class II haplotypes associated with variations in bovine leukemia virus proviral load in Japanese Black cattle"
   Tissue Antigens 81: 72-82 (2013)
4. Arainga M., Takeda E., Aida Y.:
   "Identification of bovine leukemia virus Tax function assocated with host cell transcription, signaling,stress response and immune response pathway by microarray-based gene expression analysis"
   BMC Genomics 13: 121 (2012)
5. Aida Y., Sasaki Y., Hagiwara K.
   "Discverty of Novel Antiviral Agents Directed Against the Influenza A Virus Nucleoprotein"
   ANTIVIRAL DRUGS-ASPECTS OF CLINICAL USE AND RECENT ADVANCES-Edited by Ptrick Arbuthnot: pp99-120, INTECH (2012)
6. Takeda E., Matsuda G., Murakami T., Zako T., Maeda M., Aida Y.:
   "Nuclear Exportin Receptor CAS Regulates the NPI-1-mediated Nuclear Import of HIV-1 Vpr"
   PLoS ONE, 6(11): e27815 (2011)
7. Hebishima T., Tada S., Takeshima S-N., Akaike T., Ito Y., Aida Y.:
   "Induction of antigen-specific cellular and humoral immunity by pH-sensitive carbonate apatite"
   Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun., 415:597-601 (2011)
8. Takeshima S., Matsumoto Y., Miyasaka T., Arainga-Ramirez M., Saito H., Onuma M and Aida Y.:
   "A New Method for Typing Bovine Major Histocompatibility Complex Class II DRB3 Alleles by Combining Two Established PCR Sequence-Based Techniques"
   Tissue Antigens, 78: 208-213 (2011)
9. Jimba M., Takeshima S., Matoba K., Endoh D and Aida Y.:
   "BLV-CoCoMo-qPCR: Quantitation of bovine leukemia virus proviral load using the CoCoMo algorithm"
   Retorovirology, 7: 91 (2010)
10. Hagiwara K., Murakami T., Xue G, Shimizu Y., Takeda E., Hashimoto Y., Honda K., Kondoh Y., Osada Y and Aida Y.:
    "Identification of a novel Vpr-binding compound that inhibits HIV-1 multiplication in macrophages by chemical array"
    Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun., 403, 40-45 (2010)