Virology
Ebola virus mutations do not affect pathogenicity
By Vincent Racaniello
Several mutations that arose during the 2013-2016 outbreak of Ebola virus in West Africa were previously found to increase infectivity for human cells. However, a study in two animal models show no effect of these mutations on disease. Among the many mutations identified among the hundreds of genome sequences obtained ...
TWiV 492: CRISPR diagnostics
By Vincent Racaniello
The Masters of the TWiXome review the development of sensitive, portable, and field-based viral diagnostics using the CRISPR-Cas system. <span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span><span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>&lt;span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&amp;lt;span data-mce-type="bookmark" ...
Virus-proof cells?
By Vincent Racaniello
I am very skeptical about the pronouncement this week that a group of scientists plan to engineer cells to resist virus infection. The initiative is called Genome-Project-write (GP-write) and is composed of an international group of collaborators with the broader goal of designing and assembling a synthetic human genome. The ...
TWiV 491: The Ileum and the Odyssey
By Vincent Racaniello
The TWiVome deconstructs the evolutionary history of RNA viruses, and immune promotion of murine norovirus pathogenesis by replication in intestinal tuft cells. <span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span><span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>&lt;span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; ...
A history of vertebrate RNA viruses
By Vincent Racaniello
Most of the known RNA viruses are from birds and mammals, which represent a small proportion of more recent vertebrate diversity. This omission has been corrected by the discovery of new RNA viruses in hosts that lie across the entire evolutionary history of the vertebrates. Over 186 host species representing ...