Hokkaido University · Medicine
Professor Yasuko Orba's research lab focuses on viral pathogenesis, particularly investigating polyomaviruses and orthopoxviruses in natural animal reservoirs. The lab explores viral replication mechanisms, host-virus interactions, and the cellular responses triggered by viral oncoproteins such as large T antigen. A key research direction involves understanding how viral infections manipulate the host cell cycle and DNA damage response pathways, with implications for viral persistence and oncogenesis. The lab also develops novel antiviral strategies, including RNA interference, to target viral gene expression in infected cells.
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
Large T antigen (TAg) of the human polyomavirus JC virus (JCV) possesses DNA binding and helicase activities, which, together with various cellular proteins, are required for replication of the viral genome. We now show that JCV-infected cells expressing TAg accumulate in the G(2) phase of the cell cycle as a result of the activation of ATM- and ATR-mediated G(2) checkpoint pathways. Transient transfection of cells with a TAg expression vector also induced G(2) checkpoint signaling and G(2) arre
Human monkeypox is a viral zoonosis caused by monkeypox virus, an orthopoxvirus (OPXV). The majority of human monkeypox cases have been reported in moist forested regions in West and Central Africa, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In this study we investigated zoonotic OPXV infection among wild animals in Zambia, which shares a border with DRC, to assess the geographical distribution of OPXV. We screened for OPXV antibodies in sera from non-human primates (NHPs), rode
To investigate polyomavirus infection in wild rodents, we analysed DNA samples from the spleens of 100 wild rodents from Zambia using a broad-spectrum PCR-based assay. A previously unknown polyomavirus genome was identified in a sample from a multimammate mouse (Mastomys species) and the entire viral genome of 4899 bp was subsequently sequenced. This viral genome contained potential ORFs for the capsid proteins, VP1, VP2 and VP3, and early proteins, small t antigen and large T antigen. Phylogene
RNA interference has been applied for the prevention of virus infections in mammalian cells but has not succeeded in eliminating infections from already infected cells. We now show that the transfection of JC virus-infected SVG-A human glial cells with small interfering RNAs that target late viral proteins, including agnoprotein and VP1, results in a marked inhibition both of viral protein expression and of virus production. RNA interference directed against JC virus genes may thus provide a bas
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