Question

A new disease is circulating among a town. The patient’s symptoms are a high fever, runny nose, and cough. How would you use any of the diagnostic tests in Chapter 7 to identify the virus? Make sure to identify what type of patient sample you would use, and detail the path of the virus through your tests?

Answer 1

If the patient is having high fever, runny nose, and cough as symptoms and we know that it is the viral symptoms then to diagnose the patient I will take the blood sample and analyze for the viral protein content.

Diagnosis:

1. Viral proteins are different than that of the human proteins and thus will be able to detect through the use of antibody thus it will find out using the method of ELISA.

2. Activated T-cell count and the antibody concentration in the blood. If the virus has been infected the cells the T-cells will be activated and then the formation of the antibody has been taken place through the help of B-cells in the form of plasma cells. Thus, this can also be one of the diagnosis methods for detection.

3. Rapid test of the viral protein detection can also be done if the antibody for that protein is available but this test will be qualitative and not the quantitative one.

- Indicator -Second antibody Viral antigen Capture antibody Solid support Indicator -Anti-IgG -Antibody in sample (IgG) Viral antigen Solid support

Patient samples:

Cough/sputum samples, blood samples, and urine samples can be used to analyze the viral infection through the detection of the extra viral protein content in the same.

Path of the virus:

To identify the path of the virus if the T-cell activation has been taken place then the virus in the first step must have infected the normal cell and integrated the genome inside it. Further, it must have used the host translational machinery to synthesize the viral proteins and after overloading those the T-cell has been activated through the antigens presentation process by Antigen Presenting Cells (APC).

In the second case, the cytotoxic T-cells must have played their role and to capture the viral protein and neutralize its effect the further antibody must have been formed and then it has been eliminated through the help of macrophages. Thus, all this information will help us find the path of the virus through our diagnostic tests.

CD8 T cell CD4+ T cell -TCR MHC class I- MHC class II Exogenous antigen pfa Virus or tumour antigen HLA-DO LMP23 Proteasome Endosome HLA-DM Antigenic o peptide CLIP MIIC TAP1 AlA TAP2 ER Heavy chain (HLA-A. HLA-B, HLA-C) MHC class II (HLA-DO, HLA-DP, HLA-DR)