Projects Computational Virology

Genetic determinants of severe RSV infection in infants

In close collaboration with Prof. Gesine Hansen (MHH) and Prof. Thomas Pietschmann (TWINCORE) we want to understand how the numerous changes in the human genome and their highly complex interplay can influence the severity of infections with the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) among infants. Are there specific genetic variants that occur frequently in patients with a severe course of infection? Or are rather very rare changes involved that differ from patient to patient but which influence the same cellular processes? In order to answer these and other questions, our collaborators have sequenced the exomes of more than 100 young children with severe course of disease, and we apply bioinformatics and genetic association analyses to identify likely causal variants in immunity-related genes. The effect of genetic variants of these candidate genes will then be validated experimentally by our collaborators.

The human virome in health and disease

In this project we want to explore the human virome as a potential factor of infection susceptibility. We seek to determine the number and diversity of viruses associated with humans, as comprehensively and as tissue-specific as possible. To do so, we analyze high-throughput sequencing data from potential hosts for the presence of viral genetic information using sensitive bioinformatics approaches. The basic premise here is that the viral genome will be sequenced along the host genome or transcriptome if the individual was infected with that virus at the time of sampling. To discover such cases, we develop computational workflows for sensitive homology search and targeted genome assembly from NGS data and we make use of high-performance computing for parallel execution of these tools. Although we look broadly for all types of viruses, we are particularly interested in viruses with DNA genomes, for instance herpes-, polyma- and anelloviruses as well as CRESS DNA viruses, which may cause persistent infections in humans. We also aim at exploring potential associations of the giant Nucleo-cytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs) with disease in humans.

 

The vertebrate RNA virome