The membranes of enveloped viruses contain embedded proteins that are essential for attaching to cell receptors and fusing with cell membranes. We generally view these glycoproteins as evenly distributed over the surface of the virus particle, as illustrated for influenza virus. But many more envelope glycoproteins are involved in attachment and entry of larger viruses, …
Viral glycoproteins are not always randomly distributed Read More »
What do you call a small bacterium that acts like a virus, infecting and lysing eukaryotic cells? Chromulinavvorax destructans, of course! As part of a study to identify pathogens that infect protist zooplankton, particles smaller than 0.8 microns were obtained from freshwater habitats in southwestern British Columbia, and used to infect cultures of protists.
Risk factors for the chronic neurodegenerative condition known as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) include many cellular genes and pathogenic microbes. Nucleic acids of two ubiquitous human herpesviruses, HHV-6A and HHV-7, have been found at higher levels in AD brains compared with healthy controls, and appear to regulate genes implicated in risk of developing the disease.
I sat in the green room, 15 minutes before the start of the event, more nervous than I had been for a presentation in recent years. The occasion was the keynote address, which I was about to present before 1500 attendees at the 2018 annual meeting of the American Society for Virology. I was nervous …
By Gertrud U. Rey Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of respiratory illness, including bronchiolitis and pneumonia, in the young, elderly, and immunocompromised. RSV poses a substantial public health threat due to its association with severe morbidity and mortality in infants and premature babies.
Of all the potential uses for genome editing via CRISPR/Cas9, perhaps the most exciting involves introducing therapeutic changes into human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) which can then be differentiated into many different cell types. A serious obstacle to such engineering is the finding that the tumor suppressor p53 inhibits CRISPR/Cas9 editing in hPSCs.
