Methods used to study viruses
Multiplicity of infection (MOI) is a frequently used term in virology which refers to the number of virions that are added per cell during infection. If one million virions are added to one million cells, the MOI is one. If ten million virions are added, the MOI is ten. Add 100,000 virions, and the MOI …
This week€™s addition to the virology toolbox was written by Chris Upton The Jalview package: a multiple alignment editor. This software is primarily aimed at the alignment of protein sequences. Some of the key features are: It allows you to edit the alignment It has functions to display associated protein structures It can connect to …
Viral Bioinformatics: Multiple sequence alignment – Jalview Read More »
Many virological techniques are based on the specificity of the antibody-antigen reaction. Examples in our virology toolbox include western blot analysis and ELISA. While very useful, these methods cannot be used to visualize viral proteins in infected cells or tissues. To do that we must turn to immunostaining. In direct immunostaining (illustrated), an antibody that …
Detecting viral proteins in infected cells or tissues by immunostaining Read More »
This week€™s addition to the virology toolbox was written by Danielle Coulson and Chris Upton Comparing genomes of viral strains can provide very useful insight into evolutionary relationships. Recombination, defined by Posada et al (2001) as the exchange of genetic information between two nucleotide sequences, is quite common in many viruses. Because recombination accounts for …
A more rapid method than Western blot analysis to detect a specific protein in a cell, tissue, organ, or body fluid is enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, or ELISA. This method, which does not require fractionation of the sample by gel electrophoresisis, is based on the property of proteins to readily bind to a plastic surface. To …
Readers of virology blog often request explanations of specific experimental techniques. Methods such as complement fixation, deep sequencing, ELISA, PCR and many others are frequently mentioned on this blog without discussion. To do so would interrupt the scientific discourse and make for lengthly posts. To remedy this shortcoming, I have added a new tab to …
