In our laboratory, we study replication of caliciviruses, a group of viruses classified in the Caliciviridae family, which cause a variety of diseases in vertebrates and are one of the leading causes of gastroenteritis in the human population. Caliciviruses that infect humans are difficult to propagate in cell cultures, so we used two family members as models for the study of infection: feline Calicivirus (FCV) and murine Norovirus (MNV) that can be efficiently propagated in cultures.

Our group has been interested in virus-host cell interactions, particularly in the role of cellular and viral proteins in their replication. We have described for the first time the interactions between cellular proteins and the regulatory regions present in the viral genomes of the Norwalk virus, the prototype strain of human noroviruses, as well as FCV and MNV. Furthermore, we have described the participation of proteins such as nucleolin, annexin AII, p53, PCBP2, and hnRNPA1 for efficient viral replication.

On the other hand, we have determined that the viral leader of the capsid (LC) protein is responsible for the induction of apoptosis during infection by FCV, a crucial process for the exit and dissemination of the viral progeny in its host. We are currently studying its role as a possible viroporin and testing its activity as an apoptosis inducer in cancer cells that overexpress survivin in collaboration with Dr. Patricia Talamás.

We are also interested in determining the incidence of norovirus infection in the child population in Mexico through molecular diagnosis.

1. Gutiérrez-Escolano A. L. and Del Ángel, R. M.. 1996. Nuclear proteins bind to poliovirus 5' untranslated region. Archives of Medical Research. 27:413-419.

2. Gutiérrez-Escolano, A. L., DeNova-Ocampo, M., Racaniello, V. R. y del Ángel, R. M. 1997. Attenuating mutations in the poliovirus 5' untranslated region alter its interaction with polypirimidine tract-binding protein. Journal of Virology. 71.3826-3833.

3. Gutiérrez-Escolano A. L., Uribe-Brito, Z., del Angel, R. M. y Jiang, X. 2000. Interaction of cellular proteins with the 5' end of Norwalk virus genomic RNA. Journal of Virology. 74:18. 8558-8562.

4. Gutiérrez-Escolano, A. L., Vázquez-Ochoa, M., Escobar-Herrera, J., Hernández-Acosta, J. 2003. PTB, La and PAB proteins bind to the 3' untranslated region from the Norwalk virus genomic RNA. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. 311:759-766.

5. Jaime Escobar-Herrera, Clotilde Cancio, Gloria I. Guzmán, Nicolás Villegas-Sepúlveda, Teresa Estrada-García, Herlinda García-Lozano, Fabián Gómez-Santiago, Ana Lorena Gutiérrez-Escolano. 2006. Construction of an internal RT-PCR Standard control for the detection of human caliciviruses in stool. Journal of Virological Methods. 137: 334-338.

6. Carlos Sandoval Jaime and Ana Lorena Gutiérrez-Escolano*. 2009. Cellular proteins mediate 5’-3’ end contacts of Norwalk virus genomic RNA. Virology. 387:322-330.

7. Ana Lorena Gutiérrez-Escolano*, F. Raúl Velázquez, Jaime Escobar-Herrera, Catalina López-Saucedo, Javier Torres, Teresa Estrada-García. 2010. Human Caliciviruses detected in Mexican children admitted to hospital during 1998-2000, with severe acute gastroenteritis not due to other enteropathogens. Journal of Medical Virology. 82:632-637.

8. Cancio-Lonches C., Yocupicio-Monroy M., Sandoval-Jaime, C., Galván-Mendoza, I., Vashist, S., Goodfellow, I., Ureña, L., Salas-Benito, J., and Ana Lorena Gutiérrez-Escolano. 2011. Nucleolin interacts with the Feline calicivirus 3’ untranslated region and the protease-polymerase NS6/7 protein, playing a role in virus replication. Journal of Virology. Vol. 85(16):8056-8068, Mayo 29 de 2011.

9. López-Manríquez, E., Vashist, S., Ureña, L., Goodfellow, I., Chavez, P., Mora-Heredia J. E., Cancio-Lonches, C., Garrido, E., and Gutiérrez-Escolano, A. L. 2013. Norovirus genome circularization and efficient replication are facilitated by binding of PCBP2 and hnRNP A1. Journal of Virology. 87:11371-11387.

10. Ana Lorena Gutiérrez-Escolano. 2014. Host-cell factors involved in the calicivirus replicative cycle. Future Virology. Vol 9(2):147-160.

11. Álvarez-Sánchez, C., Cancio-Lonches, C., Mora-Heredia, J. E., Santos-Valencia, J. C., Barrera-Vázquez, O. S., Yocupicio, M., and Gutiérrez-Escolano, A. L. 2015. Negative effect of heat shock on FCV reléase from infected cells is associated with the control of apoptosis. Virus Research. Vol 198: 44-52.

12. Beatriz Alvarado Hernández, Carlos Sandoval-Jaime, Stanislav Sosnovtsev, Kim Y. Green and Ana Lorena Gutiérrez-Escolano. 2016. Nucleolin promotes in vitro translation of feline calicivirus genomic RNA. Virology. Vol.489:51-62.

13. Taboada, B., Isa, P., Gutiérrez-Escolano, A. L., Del Ángel, R. M., Ludert, J. E., Vázquez, N., Tapia-Palacios, M. A., Chávez, P., Garrido, E., Espinosa, A. C., Eguiarte, L. E. López, S., Souza, V., Arias, C. F. 2018. The geographic structure of viruses in the Cuatro Ciénegas basin, a unique oasis in northern Mexico, reveals a highly diverse population on a small geographic scale. Appl. Environ Microbiol. 17;84(11) e00465-18

14. Santos Valencia Juan Carlos, Clotilede Cancio-Lonches, Adrian Trujillo Uzcanga, Beatríz Alvarado-Hernández, Anel Lagunes-Guillén y Ana Lorena Gutiérrez Escolano. 2019. Annexin A2 associates to feline calicivirus RNA in the replication complexes from infected cells and participates in an efficient viral replication. Virus Research. 261:1-8.

15. Oscar Salvador Barrera Vázquez, Clotilde Cancio-Lonches, Olivia Hernández-González, bibiana Chávez-Munguia, Nicolas Villegas-Sepúlveda y Ana Lorena Gutiérrez-Escolano. 2019. The feline calicivirus leader of the capsid protein causes survivin and XIAP downregulation and apoptosis. Virology. 527:146-156.

16. Yoatzin Peñaflor-Téllez, Adrian Trujillo-Uscanga, Jesús Alejandro Escobar-Almazán, and Ana Lorena Gutiérrez-Escolano. 2019. Immune response modulation by Caliciviruses. Frontiers in Immunology.

17. Oscar Salvador Barrera-Vázquez, Clotilde Cancio-Lonches, Carlos Emilio Miguel-Rodríguez, Mónica Margarita Valdés Pérez and Ana Lorena Gutiérrez-Escolano. 2019. Survivin overexpression has a negative effect on Feline calicivirus infection. Viruses. 11, 906: 1-12.

18. Luis Adrián De Jesús-González, Margot Cervantes-Salazar, José Manuel Reyes-Ruiz, Juan Fidel Osuna-Ramos, Carlos Noe Farfán-Morales, Selvin Noé Palacios-Rápalo, José Humberto Pérez-Olais, Carlos Daniel Cordero-Rivera, Arianna M. Hurtado-Monzón, Fernando Ruíz-Jiménez, Ana Lorena Gutiérrez-Escolano, and Rosa María del Ángel. 2020. The nuclear pore complex: A target for NS3 protease of Dengue and Zika viruses. Viruses. 12:5832-21.