Virology
Viruses That Jump Around
By Gertrud U. Rey
by Gertrud U. Rey Australian koalas are currently being invaded by koala retrovirus A (KoRV-A), a virus that causes an AIDS-like immunodeficiency and makes infected koalas more susceptible to cancers and opportunistic infections such as chlamydia. Retroviruses owe their name to their replication cycle, because their RNA genomes are reverse ...
TWiV 572: Your EV-D68th nervous breakdown
By Vincent Racaniello
Amy joins the TWiV team to review evidence that enterovirus D68 is an etiologic agent of childhood paralysis, and her finding that the ability of the virus to infect cells of the nervous system is not a recently acquired property. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 572 (73 MB .mp3, 121 ...
Phages corkscrew along bacterial flagella
By Vincent Racaniello
Viruses that infect eukaryotic cells typically bind to a plasma membrane receptor to initiate the reproduction cycle. Attachment of bacteriophages to bacterial cells is more diverse. Some attach to bacterial outer membrane proteins, while others attach to appendages such as pili or flagella. How viruses move from the flagella to ...
TWiV 571: Piwi koalas
By Vincent Racaniello
The League of Extraordinary Virologists celebrate the eradication of wild poliovirus type 3, and consider the effectiveness of an influenza vaccine produced in insect cells, and how small RNAs are protecting the Koala germline from retroviral invasion. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 571 (64 MB .mp3, 105 min) Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google ...
Neurotropism of enterovirus D68 is not a recently acquired property
By Vincent Racaniello
with Amy Rosenfeld Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) was first isolated from children with respiratory disease in 1962. No outbreaks of infection were detected until the late summer and early fall of 2014, and then in 2016 and 2018. During these epidemics of respiratory disease, some children developed polio-like paralysis. We have ...
