PNAS – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/
(Accessed 11 April 2015)

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Robust and sustained immune activation in human Ebola virus infection
Judith N. Mandla and Mark B. Feinbergb,1
Author Affiliations
Extract
Ebola viruses (EBOV) are zoonotic infectious agents that are highly pathogenic in humans, causing severe hemorrhagic fever with fatality rates of ∼50–70% (1). This genus of negative single-stranded RNA viruses consists of five known species that are part of the Filoviridae family. The current EBOV outbreak in western Africa began in March 2014 and has since resulted in >24,000 cases and >10,000 deaths (1). This 25th known EBOV outbreak is unprecedented in its magnitude, duration, and societal impact. Given the likelihood of future EBOV outbreaks, significant efforts are being devoted to develop vaccines that block EBOV transmission and novel therapeutic interventions to treat infected individuals (2, 3). Progress in these pursuits requires better understanding of what key elements of the immune response correlate with virus replication control and protection from disease. In PNAS, McElroy et al. report the results of their study of the cellular and humoral immune responses of four EBOV-infected people treated at Emory University (all of whom received experimental therapies) (4). Their data provide critical insight into aspects of the host response in humans to EBOV that have not previously been examined using contemporary immunologic methods, and provide the foundation for future studies, elucidating immune responses mediating effective virus control.