Authors: Sarah M. Tatum, Emily W. Helm, Stephanie M. Karst
Faculty Mentor: Stephanie M. Karst
College: College of Medicine
Norovirus is the most common cause of severe childhood diarrhea and a leading cause of acute gastroenteritis. Murine norovirus (MNV) has been used as a model system to study norovirus infection, but immunocompetent adult mice infected with MNV do not show the hallmark symptoms of norovirus infection. Our lab has recently developed a novel neonatal mouse model where genetically immunocompetent neonatal mice infected with acute MNV-1 develop norovirus-induced diarrhea that peaks at 48 hours post infection (hpi). Interestingly, upon infection with the genetically similar strains of persistent MNV-3 and persistent MNV-CR6, neonatal mice show attenuated disease. To investigate whether differential induction of cytokines affects virulence, we harvested the small intestines and colons of neonatal mice at 24- and 48- hpi. We extracted RNA from the tissues and determined host cytokine expression in mock, MNV-1, MNV-3, and MNV-CR6 infected mice. Although most cytokines tested did not reach detectable levels following MNV infection, we did find a significant difference in the production of TNF-α and IL-1β between virus strains. As the virulent MNV-1 strain induced higher expression than the attenuated MNV-3 or MNV-CR6, future studies will examine the role of these two cytokines on the severity of norovirus-induced disease.
Great job Sarah!
Nice job. Not sure I’d choose diarrhea as a topic, but I’m glad you did!
Does your lab have toilet paper still?
Great work Sarah!
Amazing work Sarah!
Great job Sarah! My question is, did you find any reason that the incidence of diarrhea in the MNV-3 strain is greater than the MNV-CR6 strain. Also, would cytokine induction differences between these strains be clinically relevant?