KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

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·         Antiviral State - Once a virus enters host cell, different type of sensors recognize the intruder and active a signaling cascade leading to the expression of several hundreds of genes leading to the establishment of the antiviral state.

·         Antiproliferative Mechanism – A mechanism that tends to inhibit cell growth (antiproliferative effects on tumor cells).

·         Apoptosis - A form of cell death in which a programmed sequence of events leads to the elimination of cells without releasing harmful substances into the surrounding area. Apoptosis plays a crucial role in developing and maintaining the health of the body by eliminating old cells, unnecessary cells, and unhealthy cells.

·         Autophagy - Autophagy is a normal physiological process in the body that deals with destruction of cells in the body. It maintains homeostasis or normal functioning by protein degradation and turnover of the destroyed cell organelles for new cell formation.

·         Dimerization - The chemical reaction that joins two molecular subunits, resulting in the formation of a single dimer.

·         dsRNA - Double-stranded (ds) RNA viruses are a diverse group of viruses that vary widely in host range (humans, animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria), genome segment number (one to twelve) and virion organization (T-number, capsid layers or turrets). Members of this group include the rotaviruses, known globally as a common cause of gastroenteritis in young children, and bluetongue virus, an economically important pathogen of cattle and sheep.

·         Fluorophore - A fluorophore (or fluorochrome, similarly to a chromophore) is a fluorescent chemical compound that can re-emit light upon light excitation. Fluorophores typically contain several combined aromatic groups, or plane or cyclic molecules with several π bonds. Fluorophores are sometimes used alone, as a tracer in fluids, as a dye for staining of certain structures, as a substrate of enzymes, or as a probe or indicator (when its fluorescence is affected by environment such as polarity, ions,...). But more generally it is covalently bonded to a macromolecule, serving as a marker (or dye, or tag, or reporter) for affine or bioactive reagents (antibodies, peptides, nucleic acids).

·         Genome - the genetic material of an organism. It is encoded either in DNA or, for RNA viruses, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA.

·         Interferon - Any of various proteins, produced by virus-infected cells, that inhibit reproduction of the invading virus and induce resistance to further infection.

·         Intereferon beta 1a - A cytokine in the interferon family used to treat multiple sclerosis (MS). It is produced by mammalian cells, while interferon beta 1b is produced in modified E. coli. Some claims have been made that Interferons produce about an 18–38% reduction in the rate of MS relapses.

·         Truncation – a truncated protein is a protein shortened by a mutation which specifically induces premature termination of messenger RNA translation.

·         ssRNA - A virus in which the genetic material is a single stranded RNA.