Special Topic: Recent Updates and Research Progress on Dengue Virus

Dengue virus (DENV), a mosquito-borne pathogen responsible for dengue fever, remains a severe global health challenge. Global dengue cases have risen consistently over the past five years. The virus is now endemic in more than 100 countries and regions across tropical and subtropical areas of the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia. However, there are no commercially available vaccines or specific antiviral treatments against DENV.

This special topic assembles a series of papers recently published in Virologica Sinica, showcasing cutting-edge findings in dengue virus research, ranging from vaccine and antiviral development, viral prevalence and pathogenesis, to diagnostic biomarkers. These works collectively enrich our understanding of DENV infection mechanisms and support translational diagnosis and therapeutic exploitation.

Articles in This Special Topic

• Current status of dengue fever epidemics and vaccine development

• Antiviral agents for dengue virus

• Deep data-independent acquisition-based plasma proteomic profiling unveils distinct molecular features in dengue fever with neutropenia

• Adaptor protein complex 1 gamma 1 subunit is an important host factor involved in both Zika virus and dengue virus infections

• Bis-benzylisoquinoline alkaloids inhibit flavivirus entry and replication by compromising endolysosomal trafficking and autophagy

• Eltrombopag, an FDA-approved drug, inhibits dengue virus type 2 by targeting NS2B-NS3 protease

• Co-circulation of all four DENV serotypes during 2016 outbreak in Sinaloa, Mexico: First report of DENV-4 in patients

• Zika virus infections and associated risk factors among pregnant women in Gombe, Nigeria

• Design of antiviral AGO2-dependent short hairpin RNAs

• A novel IFNbeta-induced long non-coding RNA ZAP-IT1 interrupts Zika virus replication in A549 cells

• A multiple-target mRNA-LNP vaccine induces protective immunity against experimental multi-serotype DENV in mice

• Seroepidemiologic study on convalescent sera from dengue fever patients in Jinghong, Yunnan