Ultan F Power

• PhD
• Professor at Queen's University Belfast

Despite decades of research and disease burden, RSV remains the most common cause of acute lower respiratory tract infection (ALRTI) in infants <2 years of age. New vaccines and an improved long lasting monoclonal antibody have been approved to protect individuals at increased risk of severe disease. However, treatment of severe RSV-mediated diseas...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease burden is greatest between six weeks and 6 months of life, with young age the most common risk factor among hospitalised children. A robust innate immune response in the airway epithelium is crucial for mitigating RSV-associated disease, but early-life immune responses to infection remain largely unexplored...

Wheezing in childhood is prevalent, with over one-half of all children experiencing at least 1 episode by age 6. The pathophysiology of wheeze, especially why some children develop asthma while others do not, remains unclear. This study addresses the knowledge gap by investigating the transition from preschool wheeze to asthma using multiomic profi...

Temperature regulation is a key aspect of homeostasis, and several systems are involved in orchestrating adjustments in gene expression at the cellular level. One such factor is RBM3, a cold-inducible RNA-binding protein implicated in several aspects of mRNA processing and regulation. The upper respiratory tract serves as a unique environment regar...

The Rab11a endosomal recycling pathway is exploited by important respiratory RNA viruses such as IAV and RSV, aiding viral egress from the apical surface of polarized epithelial cells. Late in infection, Rab11a-containing vesicles specifically transport viral ribonucleoprotein (vRNP) complexes towards the cell surface before packaging and budding....

Interferons (IFN) constitute a primary line of protection against mucosal infection, with IFN research spanning over 60 years and encompassing a vast ever-expanding amount of literature. Most of what is currently understood has been derived from extensive research defining the roles of “classical” type I IFNs, IFNα and IFNβ. However, little is know...

Respiratory viruses’ detection is vitally important in coping with pandemics such as COVID-19. Conventional methods typically require laboratory-based, high-cost equipment. An emerging alternative method is Near-Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, especially a portable one of the type that has the benefits of low cost, portability, rapidity, ease of use,...

Patients with decompensated liver cirrhosis, in particular those classified as Childs-Pugh class C, are at increased risk of severe COVID-19 upon infection with SARS-CoV-2. The biological mechanisms underlying this are unknown. We aimed to examine the levels of serum intrinsic antiviral proteins as well as alterations in the innate antiviral immune...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes severe infections in infants, immunocompromised or elderly individuals resulting in annual epidemics of respiratory disease. Currently, limited clinical RSV surveillance and the lack of predictable RSV seasonal dynamics and limits the public health response. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has the capaci...

Understanding the biological basis of clinical risk factors for severe COVID–19 is required to ensure at–risk patient populations receive appropriate clinical care. Patients with decompensated liver cirrhosis, in particular those classified as Childs–Pugh class B and C, are at increased risk of severe COVID–19 upon infection with SARS–CoV–2. The bi...

There is evidence that it may be possible to detect viruses and viral infection optically using techniques such as Raman and infra-red (IR) spectroscopy and hence open the possibility of rapid identification of infected patients. However, high-resolution Raman and IR spectroscopy instruments are laboratory-based and require skilled operators. The u...

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants has exacerbated the COVID-19 global health crisis. Thus far, all variants carry mutations in the spike glycoprotein, which is a critical determinant of viral transmission being responsible for attachment, receptor engagement and membrane fusion, and an important target of immunity. Variants frequently bear trunc...

Children are less likely than adults to suffer severe symptoms when infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), while influenza A H1N1 severity is comparable across ages except for the very young or elderly. Airway epithelial cells play a vital role in the early defence against viruses via their barrier and immune fu...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the cause of the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic, was identified in late 2019 and caused >5 million deaths by February 2022. To date, targeted antiviral interventions against COVID-19 are limited. The spectrum of SARS-CoV-2 infection ranges from asymptomatic to fatal disease....

Background There is increasing evidence that the airway microbiome plays a key role in the establishment of respiratory health by interacting with the developing immune system early in life. While it has become clear that bacteria are involved in this process, there is a knowledge gap concerning the role of fungi. Moreover, the inter-kingdom intera...

SARS-CoV-2 can efficiently infect both children and adults, albeit with morbidity and mortality positively associated with increasing host age and presence of co-morbidities. SARS-CoV-2 continues to adapt to the human population, resulting in several variants of concern (VOC) with novel properties, such as Alpha and Delta. However, factors driving...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is the leading cause of hospitalisation in children worldwide, but there is still no vaccine or anti-viral treatment available. RSV has been implicated in the development of respiratory diseases such as asthma. Toll like receptor 4 (TLR4) has been well characterised in the immune responses to RSV. However...

In this work, we present the combination of nearinfrared spectroscopy and chemometrics to distinguish respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and Sendai virus (SeV), the first study of its kind. Using a low-cost and portable spectrometer, a total of 440 virus spectra were collected over four separate sessions. The spectra were pre-processed by normalisat...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the cause of the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic, was identified in late 2019 and went on to cause over 3.3 million deaths in 15 months. To date, targeted antiviral interventions against COVID-19 are limited. The spectrum of SARS-CoV-2 infection ranges from asymptomatic to fat...

SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve, resulting in several ‘variants of concern’ with novel properties. The factors driving SARS-CoV-2 fitness and evolution in the human respiratory tract remain poorly defined. Here, we provide evidence that both viral and host factors co-operate to shape SARS-CoV-2 genotypic and phenotypic change. Through viral whole-ge...

Globally, bovine respiratory disease (BRD) remains the principal reason for mortality of calves over one month of age despite the availability of various vaccines on the UK market. Bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) was first discovered in the 1970s and is now considered a principal pathogen implicated in the disease complex. Outbreaks occur...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of acute lower respiratory tract infections in young children. Currently, there is no RSV vaccine or universally accessible antiviral treatment available. Addressing the urgent need for new antiviral agents, we have investigated the capacity of a non-coding single-stranded oligonucleotide (ssON...

The culture of differentiated human airway epithelial cells allows the study of pathogen-host interactions and innate immune responses in a physiologically relevant in vitro model. As the use of primary cell culture has gained popularity the availability of the reagents needed to generate these cultures has increased. In this study we assessed two...

The respiratory epithelium comprises polarized cells at the interface between the environment and airway tissues. Polarized apical and basolateral protein secretions are a feature of airway epithelium homeostasis. Human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) is a major human pathogen that primarily targets the respiratory epithelium. However, the conse...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes severe lower respiratory tract infections in young infants. There are no RSV-specific treatments available. Ablynx has been developing an anti-RSV F-specific Nanobody®, ALX-0171. To characterise the therapeutic potential of ALX-0171 we exploited our well-differentiated primary pediatric bronchial epithelial...

The culture of differentiated human airway epithelial cells allows the study of pathogen-host interactions and innate immune responses in a physiologically relevant in vitro model. As the use of primary cell culture has gained popularity the availability of the reagents needed to generate these cultures has increased. In this study we assessed two...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes severe lower respiratory tract infections in young infants. There are no RSV-specific treatments available. Ablynx has been developing an anti-RSV F-specific Nanobody®, ALX-0171. To characterise the therapeutic potential of ALX-0171 we exploited our well-differentiated primary pediatric bronchial epithelial...

The original antigenic sin (OAS) theory considers the outcome of the first encounter with an antigen. It favors a memory response to the original antigen upon exposure to a similar or related antigen, and includes both positive and negative impacts of past exposure on the memory response to challenge, and, in particular, on vaccine efficacy. This p...

The airway epithelium is the primary target of respiratory syncytial virus infection. It is an important component of the antiviral immune response. It contributes to the recruitment and activation of innate immune cells from the periphery through the secretion of cytokines and chemokines. This paper provides a broad review of the cytokines and che...

While chronic bacterial infections and inflammation are associated with progressive lung disease in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, much less is known regarding the contributions of respiratory viral infections to this process. Clinical studies suggest that antiviral host defenses may be compromised in individuals with CF, and CF airway epithelia ex...

Artificial nanoparticles accumulate a protein corona layer in biological fluids, which significantly influences their bioactivity. As nanosized obligate intracellular parasites, viruses share many biophysical properties with artificial nanoparticles in extracellular environments and here we show that respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and herpes sim...

Background RSV is a major respiratory pathogen in infants, with preterm and young infants being at increased risk of severe disease. Airway epithelial cell (AEC) innate immune responses represent an important first line of defence. Development of these responses in early life is poorly understood. Methods Well differentiated cultures were generate...

Asthma affects over a million children in the UK. Early age viral infection, allergen sensitization, atopy and genetic predisposition increases the likelihood of developing asthma. Our aim is to understand the consequences of allergen exposure (house-dust mite; HDM) and/or RSV infection on innate immune responses, cytopathogenesis and virus replica...

Background Almost all infants are infected with RSV by 2 years. 1–3 % of RSV-infected infants are hospitalised with severe disease. Reasons for susceptibility to severe disease remain obscure. We aimed to identify factors that might explain such susceptibility. Methods We generated well-differentiated primary nasal epithelial cell (WD-PNEC) cultur...

Abstract The respiratory epithelium comprises polarized cells at the interface between the environment and airway tissues. Polarized apical and basolateral protein secretions are a feature of airway epithelium homeostasis. Human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) is a major human pathogen that primarily targets the respiratory epithelium. However,...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is the major cause of severe lower respiratory tract disease in young infants. Evidence suggests that cystic fibrosis (CF) is associated with significant morbidity following RSV infection. We and others previously demonstrated that airway epithelium is the primary target of RSV infection. However, little...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0201328.].

Background Innate immune responses of airway epithelium are important defences against respiratory pathogens and allergens. Newborn infants are at greater risk of severe respiratory infections compared to older infants, while premature infants are at greater risk than full term infants. However, very little is known regarding human neonatal airway...

Clinical information proforma for infants at one year. (DOCX)

Background: Latent class analysis (LCA) has been used extensively to identify (latent) phenotypes of childhood wheezing. However, the number and trajectory of discovered phenotypes differed substantially between studies. Objective: We sought to investigate sources of variability affecting the classification of phenotypes, identify key time point...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is the leading cause of severe lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) in infants worldwide. The immune responses to RSV infection are implicated in RSV pathogenesis but RSV immunopathogenesis in humans remains poorly understood. We previously demonstrated that IFN-λ1 is the principle interferon induced...

Background Innate immune responses of airway epithelium are important defences against respiratory pathogens and allergens. Newborn infants are at greater risk of severe respiratory infections compared to older infants. However, very little is known regarding human neonatal airway epithelium immune responses and whether age-related morphological an...

To investigate the genetic diversity of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) in Northern Ireland, the ORF5 gene from nine field isolates was sequenced and phylogenetically analysed. The results revealed relatively high diversity amongst isolates, with 87.6-92.2% identity between farms at the nucleotide level and 84.1-93.5% id...

Background. Childhood asthma is a common complex condition whose aetiology is thought to involve gene-environment interactions in early life occurring at the airway epithelium, associated with immune dysmaturation. It is not clear if abnormal airway epithelium cell (AEC) and cellular immune system functions associated with asthma are primary or sec...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) annually affecting >2 million children in the US <5 years old. In the elderly (>65 years old), RSV results in ∼175,000 hospitalizations annually in the US with worldwide incidence ∼34 million. There is no approved RSV vaccine and treatments are limited. R...

Nanoparticles accumulate a layer of host factors on their surface (a protein corona) in biological fluids, which influences the nanoparticle activity. We hypothesized that viruses also constitute nanoparticles in this respect and here we provide evidence for the existence of viral protein coronae that have implications for viral infectivity, immune...

La/SS-B (or La) is a 48 kDa RNA-binding protein and an autoantigen in autoimmune disorders such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and Sjögren’s syndrome (SS). La involvement in regulating the type I interferon (IFN) response is controversial - acting through both positive and negative regulatory mechanisms; inhibiting the IFN response and enhan...

Background: Airway epithelial cell (AEC) function differs between children with and without asthma. Here, we associated neonatal AEC function with asthma symptoms at 4 years of age. Methods: Nasal AEC were collected from neonates within 48 h of birth. Cells were cultured and stimulated with tumor necrosis factor alpha/interleukin-1 beta (TNFα/IL...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections remain a major cause of respiratory disease and hospitalizations among infants. Infection recurs frequently and establishes a weak and short-lived immunity. To date, RSV immunoprophylaxis and vaccine research is mainly focused on the RSV fusion (F) protein, but a vaccine remains elusive. The RSV F protei...

Table S3. Infected Sample RFI Values Normalized to Prohibitin and Analyzed for Expression Increase or Decrease of 25% When Compared to the Uninfected Control Average

The majority of antiviral therapeutics target conserved viral proteins, however this approach confers selective pressure on the virus and increases the probability of antiviral drug resistance. An alternative therapeutic strategy is to target the host-encoded factors that are required for virus infection, thus minimising the opportunity for viral m...

Receptors implicated in cough hypersensitivity are transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), transient receptor potential cation channel, Subfamily A, Member 1 (TRPA1) and acid sensing ion channel receptor 3 (ASIC3). Respiratory viruses, such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and measles virus (MV) may interact directly and/or indirectly...

(DOCX)

Introduction Airway epithelial cells (AEC) are important contributors to the innate immune system and AEC function in children with asthma differs to that of children without asthma. We recruited a birth cohort to establish whether AEC function was abnormal before the onset of asthma symptoms. Methods Pregnant mothers were recruited and nasal AEC...

The choice of model used to study human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is extremely important. RSV is a human pathogen that is exquisitely adapted to infection of human hosts. Rodent models, such as mice and cotton rats, are semi-permissive to RSV infection and do not faithfully reproduce hallmarks of RSV disease in humans. Furthermore...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the major cause of viral lower respiratory tract illness in children. In contrast to the RSV prototypic strain A2, clinical isolate RSV 2-20 induces airway mucin expression in mice, a clinically relevant phenotype dependent on the fusion (F) protein of the RSV strain. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) play...

Goblet cell hyperplasia/metaplasia resulting from RSV A2-2-20F infection. Lungs from vehicle-treated and mock-infected (A-B) or RSV A2-2-20F-infected (C-D) mice were harvested at day 8 p.i., serially sectioned, and stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) (A and C) or PAS (B and D). Arrows indicate goblet cells (C) and mucin (D). Magnification, 70...

F and EGFR cell surface expression. 293T cells were transfected with EGFR and either A2 F or 2–20 F. (A &B) Cell were harvested and (non-permeabilized) probed with mAbs to either EGFR (A) or RSV F (B) and analyzed by flow cytometry. (C) The quantification of three experiments combined showing that EGFR and RSV F surface expression do not vary betwe...

Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is an important causative agent of lower respiratory tract infections in infants and elderly. Its fusion (F) protein is critical for virus infection. It is targeted by several investigational antivirals and by palivizumab, a humanised monoclonal antibody used prophylactically in infants considered at high risk of s...

Importance: Most respiratory viruses target airway epithelium for infection and replication, which is central to causing disease. However, for most human viruses we have a poor understanding of their interactions with human airway epithelium. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most important viral pathogen of young infants. To help understan...

Until recently the airway epithelial cell (AEC) was considered a simple barrier that prevented entry of inhaled matter into the lung parenchyma. The AEC is now recognized as having an important role in the inflammatory response of the respiratory system to inhaled exposures, and abnormalities of these responses are thought to be important to asthma...

As the most important viral cause of severe respiratory disease in infants and increasing recognition as important in the elderly and immunocompromised, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is responsible for a massive health burden worldwide. Prophylactic antibodies were successfully developed against RSV. However, their use is restricted to a small...

Dendritic cells (DCs) of the skin play an important role in skin-mediated immunity capable of promoting potent immune responses. We availed of polymeric dissolving microneedle (MN) arrays laden with nano-encapsulated antigen to specifically target skin DC networks. This modality of immunization represents an economic, efficient and potent means of...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major pathogen that primarily infects airway epithelium. Most infants suffer mild upper respiratory tract (URT) symptoms, while approximately one third progress to lower respiratory tract (LRT) involvement. Despite the ubiquity of URT infection, little is known about the relative cytopathogenesis of RSV infect...

Mixed infections are one of the major therapeutic challenges, as the current strategies have had limited success. One of the most common and widespread conditions of mixed infection is respiratory syncytial virus-mediated pathology of the respiratory tract in children. There is a dire need for the development of novel therapeutic approaches during...

Although respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major human respiratory pathogen, our knowledge of how it causes disease in humans is limited. Airway epithelial cells are the primary targets of RSV infection in vivo, so the generation and exploitation of RSV infection models based on morphologically and physiologically authentic well-differentiated...

The efficacious delivery of antigens to antigen-presenting cells (APCs), in particular to dendritic cells (DCs), and their subsequent activation remains a significant challenge in the development of effective vaccines. This study highlights the potential of dissolving microneedle arrays laden with nano-encapsulated antigen to increase vaccine immun...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is an important cause of severe upper and lower respiratory disease in infants and in the elderly. There are 2 main RSV subtypes A and B. A recombinant vaccine was designed based on the central domain of the RSV-A attachment G protein which we had previously named G2Na (aa130-230). Here we evaluated immunogenicity,...

Encapsulation of G2Na in PLGA [poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide]. Schematic representation of the encapsulation as described in detail in Materials and Methods. The Ag microencapsulation efficiency was evaluated to 68%. On the upper right, we show micro photographs from electronic microscopy of encapsulated microspheres in order to evaluate the homoge...