radhika-patel@uiowa.edu
Mentor: Wendy Maury, Ph.D.
Lab Room: 3-701 BSB
Lab Phone: 319-335-7613

Role of skin in transmission of Ebola virus

The 2014-2016 West African Ebola virus (EBOV) outbreak has emphasized our lack of understanding and treatments for filoviral infections. Once EBOV entered the human population person-to-person transmission maintained the epidemic for an extended period. As many as 28,000 people were infected with the mortality rate of 40%. There is currently no approved vaccine and palliative care of EBOV infected patients is the only treatment. Furthermore, virus has been found to be present on the skin surface at late stages of infection when viremia is high and it is believed that skin-associated virus is transmitted to others. However, little is known about how virus gets to the surface of the skin or which cell types in the skin support viral replication. Thus, a critical need remains to understand virus transmission to the skin surface in order to be able to interrupt the person-to-person transmission cycle.

To address these questions we have developed a novel model system in which human skin explants cultured on nylon inserts at the air-liquid interface are infected with the BSL2 replication-competent recombinant virus, EBOV GP-rVSV. Our preliminary studies indicate that viral particles in skin explants as well as supernatant bathing the basolateral surface of explants increases over time, suggesting that the virus is actively replicating and is released into the medium. Our central hypothesis is that direct infection of cells within the skin is an important route of viral transmission to the skin surface. The dermal cells get infected and pass the virus to epidermal cells, causing the virus to be released on the skin surface. We plan to characterize and evaluate the importance of each of the different skin cell types in viral transmission through skin. Our objective is to define the cellular path EBOV takes to traverse through skin. These studies will help develop novel therapeutics and strategies to interrupt person-to-person transmission cycle of Ebola virus.



Brouillette RB, Phillips EK, Patel R, Mahauad-Fernandez W, Moller-Tank S, Rogers KJ, Dillard JA, Cooney AL, Martinez-Sobrido L, Okeoma C, Maury W. TIM-1 Mediates Dystroglycan-Independent Entry of Lassa Virus. J Virol. 2018 Jul 31;92(16). pii: e00093-18. doi: 10.1128/JVI.00093-18. Print 2018 Aug 15. PubMed PMID: 29875238; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6069209.