Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
An outbreak of atypical pneumonia, referred to as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) occurred in the Guangdong Province of the People's Republic of China beginning in late 2002. The human coronavirus-SARS (SARS-CoV) is most likely the sole etiologic agent of SARS. Given the significant morbidity and mortality caused by SARS-CoV infections, it is important we understand the pathogenesis of this infection, in order to design effective vaccines and antiviral therapy. SARS-CoV does not infect mice, probably because they lack the recently discovered receptor for the virus, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2). We are interested in developing a mouse model for SARS-CoV to provide information on the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV that will be useful in designing vaccines to protect the population. Our initial studies will focus on determining how individual SARS-CoV proteins modulate the adaptive immune response.