Office of Infectious Diseases

Detection of viral pathogens associated with acute lower respiratory infection in children in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea: a matched case-control study

Introduction In Papua New Guinea, acute lower respiratory infection (ALRI) is the most common reason for childhood hospitalisation and death. Recent changes in epidemiology, diagnostic approaches and vaccine policy warrant re-examination of the aetiology of ALRI. Methods A matche...

Antagonism of stress granules is key to SARS-CoV-2 infection and pathogenesis

ABSTRACT Viruses must subvert host responses to facilitate successful infection. While most antiviral responses are associated with interferons, stress granules (SGs) are another barrier to viral infection by inducing translation arrest. To combat SG activity, viruses have evolve...

Gut microbiota and complications in kidney transplantation: a balancing act between commensal and pathogenic bacteria

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Recent work has linked gut dysbiosis, an imbalance of commensal and pathogenic bacteria, to complications in kidney transplant recipients. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the gut microbiota's relationship to important complications in kidney transplan...

TRAIL splice variant TRAILshort disrupts T cell receptor signaling and promotes immune tolerance in vivo

TRAIL is a TNF family ligand that trimerizes TRAIL-R1 (DR4) or TRAIL-R2 (DR5) to induce apoptosis, necroptosis, and/or NF-κB activation in receptor-bearing cells. We previously identified TRAILshort as a splice variant of TRAIL that lacks cysteine 230, cannot trimerize, and acts...