Pitt Pediatrics congratulates Laurie Silva, PhD, for her recent R01 award from the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease for her research tilted “Molecular mechanisms governing chikungunya virus binding, tropism and pathogenesis”. 
Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an arthritogenic alphavirus that causes a painful musculoskeletal inflammatory disease, which can persist for months to years. Chronic CHIKV arthritis is debilitating and produces substantial social and economic consequences. Despite the burden posed by acute and chronic CHIKV disease, licensed vaccines and antiviral therapeutics are not available.
Silva and her team discovered that multiple pathogenic strains of CHIKV bind to heparan sulfate (HS), a type of glycosaminoglycan (GAG) that is highly variable in subunits and modifications, to mediate adhesion to cells. Efficient binding and infection of biologically relevant cell types by CHIKV depends on cell-surface HS, but little is known about the viral and host determinants that mediate these initial contacts or how CHIKV-HS interactions influence virulence and disease outcomes.
The team hypothesizes that CHIKV has evolved an optimum affinity for unique HS structures, including N-sulfation, via specific residues of CHIKV E2 to mediate efficient CHIKV attachment to target cells, which influences viral disease outcomes.
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