Virology Commons^™

Antiviral Nucleoside Inhibitors Of Leishmania Rna Virus 1: Discovery And Mechanism, John Isaac Robinson

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Some Leishmania parasites in the Viannia sub-genus are persistently infected with Leishmania RNA virus 1 (LRV1), a single-segmented double-stranded RNA virus belonging to the family Totiviridae. Infected parasites cause greater pathology and reach higher populations in mouse models of Leishmania infection. In human disease, LRV1+ parasites are correlated with increased frequency of treatment failure and relapse. Efficient methods to detect LRV1 and eliminate it from parasites are required to better understand the role of LRV1 in Leishmania infection. We optimized multiple techniques to measure LRV1 levels in parasites, most notably using flow cytometry to measure the amount of viral capsid …