Dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever, considered by the World Health Organization as the most important resurgent tropical infectious disease, constitutes one of the leading causes of hospitalization of children in Southeast Asia. Several immunopathological mechanisms are thought to influence disease severity, including complex interactions between HLA alleles and the infecting virus serotype (DEN-1,-2,-3, or-4). In this project, stable transfectants expressing HLA alleles thought to influence dengue disease severity were created. To do this, HLA alleles HLA-A*0207 and HLA-B*0705/6 were amplified using PCR from a B lymphoblastoid cell line that was generated from a dengue immune Thai subject. These alleles were transformed into the pBluescriptII bacterial vector and subsequently subcloned into the RSV.5 neo mammalian expression vector. The latter vector was then used to transfect adherent mammalian cell lines BHK-21 and COS-7, and stable transfectants were selected using the drug G418. The resulting cells will be useful for studies of the expression of dengue virus antigens to T lymphocytes in the context of specific HLA alleles found in the Thai population.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Malone, Shauna Lynne
• Clark, Danielle Virginia

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• 02D204M

Advisor

• Adams, David S.

Year

• 2002

Sponsor

• University of Massachusetts Medical Center

Date created

• 2002-01-01

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Biology & Biotechnology

Rights statement

• In Copyright