Research Projects

Kyasanur forest disease virus (KFDV) causes Kyasanur forest disease, a tick-borne severe hemorrhagic fever in humans with a mortality rate ranges from 3 to 10%. At present, no effective vaccines or anti-KFDV therapeutics are available, and new anti-viral drugs are urgently needed to treat and control the disease. A possible target for antiviral strategy is to interfere with the attachment and entry receptor of the virus. However, the receptors utilized by KFDV to enter the cell and their nature of interaction with viral glycoproteins remain unknown. Our preliminary bioinformatics analysis has identified an integrin binding motif within the KFDV-envelope glycoprotein. We hypothesize that interaction of integrin binding motif of KFDV envelope glycoprotein with a cellular integrin receptor lead to the entry of KFDV into its target cells. In this study, KFDV-virus like particles (KFDV-VLP) will be generated and used to identify the host cellular receptors that interact with the virus during entry. For validating the interacting partners, immunoprecipitation using recombinant envelope glycoprotein and virus overlay protein binding assay (VOPBA) will also be performed. KFDV-VLPs will also be used to establish the functionality of the receptor in the entry process in both receptor knockdown and overexpression experiments. These studies will make significant findings regarding how the virus envelope glycoproteins interacts with entry factors during infection and how entry can be blocked by targeting these molecules.