Poliovirus has been found in sewage in Israel. The virus detected is not vaccine-derived poliovirus; it is wild-type 1 poliovirus, the strain that occurs naturally in the wild and which the World Health Organization is trying very hard to eradicate from the planet. As part of the global effort to eradicate poliovirus, environmental samples from …
Poliovirus silently (and not so silently) spreads Read More »
I interviewed structural virologist David Bhella in Manchester, England at the spring meeting of the Society for General Microbiology. MWV Episode 74 – David Bhella – Electron-cryomicroscopy from microbeworld on Vimeo.
On episode #242 of the science show This Week in Virology, the complete TWiV team talks about how two different viruses shape the evolution of an essential housekeeping protein. You can find TWiV #242 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites: they must enter a cell to reproduce. To gain access to the cell interior, a virus must first bind to one or more specific receptor molecules on the cell surface. Cell receptors for viruses do not exist only to serve viruses: they also have cellular functions. An example is the transferrin …
On episode #241 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, Rich and Kathy review how human placental trophoblasts confer viral resistance via exosome-mediated delivery of microRNAs, and isolation of the first human influenza virus in 1933. You can find TWiV #241 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
The biggest known viruses are Mimivirus (750 nanometer capsid, 1.2 million base pair DNA) and Megavirus (680 nanometer capsid, 1.3 million base pair DNA). These giant viruses have all been isolated from environmental samples, and many infect amoebae. A new Mimivirus has now been isolated from a human patient with pneumonia. To search for giant …
