Abstract
Human Metapneumovirus (hMPV) is a leading respiratory viral pathogen associated with bronchiolitis, pneumonia, and asthma exacerbation in young children, the elderly and immunocompromised individuals. The development of a potential vaccine against hMPV requires detailed understanding of the host immune system, which plays a significant role in hMPV pathogenesis, susceptibility and vaccine efficacy. As a result, animal models have been developed to better understand the mechanisms by which hMPV causes disease. Several animal models have been evaluated and established so far to study the host immune responses and pathophysiology of hMPV infection. However, inbred laboratory mouse strains have been one of the most used animal species for experimental modeling and therefore used for the studies of immunity and immunopathogenesis to hMPV. This review summarizes the contributions of the mouse model to our understanding of the immune response against hMPV infection.
Highlights
IntroductionHuman metapneumovirus (hMPV), belongs to the Paramyxoviridae family and represents the first human member of the genus Metapneumovirus. hMPV is a leading respiratory viral pathogen causing
Human metapneumovirus, belongs to the Paramyxoviridae family and represents the first human member of the genus Metapneumovirus. hMPV is a leading respiratory viral pathogen causingPathogens 2015, 4 acute respiratory tract infection (ARTI) in young children, the elderly and immunocompromised individuals [1]. hMPV was first isolated in the Netherlands in 2001 from respiratory specimens of young children suffering with acute respiratory tract illness [2] and represents a major respiratory pathogen worldwide
HMPV is classified into four genetic lineages, named A1, A2, B1 and B2 that divide into the A and B antigenic subgroups that belong to one serotype [11,12]. hMPV genome size is approximately 13,000 nt as it varies depending on the strain
Summary
Human metapneumovirus (hMPV), belongs to the Paramyxoviridae family and represents the first human member of the genus Metapneumovirus. hMPV is a leading respiratory viral pathogen causing. Epidemiological studies show that hMPV is responsible for 5%–15% of pediatric hospitalizations for respiratory tract infections [3,4,5,6,7] It induces clinical syndromes ranging from mild disease to more severe disease, with high fever, wheezing, severe cough, difficulty in breathing, tachypnea, bronchiolitis and pneumonia [8,9,10]. The hMPV sequence includes eight genes encoding nine proteins: nucleocapsid (N), phosphoprotein (P), matrix (M), second matrix (M2-1, M2-2), fusion (F), small hydrophobic (SH), attachment (G) and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (L).
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