THE PROCESS OF IDENTIFICATION OF MUTATIONS THAT CONTROL THE ABILITY OF VIRUSES TO REPLICATE AND CAUSE DISEASE AND THE APPLICATION OF THESE MUTATIONS TO VIRAL DIAGNOSIS AND ANTIVIRAL THERAPY

摘要

There is currently little understanding of the genetic basis for virulence o r growth control in viruses. The invention provides methods of identifying mutations that control viral virulence and growth as well as the application of the detection of these mutations to diagnostic an d therapeutic purposes. This patent identifies a process of selecting viral variants that accumulate biologically relevant mutations. The process involves the serial culturing of large populations of virus under conditions of restricted replication in this instance in the lung of mice but can inclu de other types of tissues, that selects viruses with mutations that both increase replication and virulence. These mutations also involve regions of proteins that are in involved in controlling aspects of specific viral protein and RNA interactions. These regions define targets for antiviral drug intervention.