ViroBlogy

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Scientists have discovered the first new type of botulinum toxin in 40 years, and in a highly unusual move, they are keeping the toxin’s genetic sequence data secret for now so that no one can make it in a lab before an effective antitoxin can be developed.

Until now, Clostridium botulinum was known to produce seven types of toxins, all of which cause paralysis by blocking neurotransmitters in humans and animals. The last one was discovered in 1970.

See on www.cidrap.umn.edu

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Previous research has shown that plants and invertebrates use an immune response called the RNA interference(RNAi) pathway to build a weapon against a viral infection.

Two new studies from scientists at the University of California, Riverside have found that a similar pathway exists in mammals, but it is typically suppressed by viral proteins. The study researchers said if this suppression could be lifted, it would open the door to a completely new way to treat a viral infection.

In the studies, the scientists were able to remove the suppressor protein from the virus. This allowed laboratory mice to quickly eliminate an infection from the Nodamura virus from their system using the RNAi process, which dispatches small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) to kill the disease.

See on www.redorbit.com

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So the US government is likely being shutdown, which will suspend the work of many government agencies, including the Center for Disease Control (CDC). But, fair citizens, I reassure you – in its wisdom, the US Congress has decided that the military’s salaries will be excluded from the shutdown.

With all due respect to military personnel, this is ludicrous. The US military is by far the world’s largest, there is little likelihood of any major war (the last great power war was in 1953), and no sign of minor wars starting, either. Suspended salaries may be bad for morale and long term retention, but they aren’t going to compromise US military power.

Contrast with the CDC’s work. The world’s deadliest war was the second world war, with 60 million dead, over a period of years (other wars get nowhere close to this). The Spanish flu killed 50-100 million on its own, in a single year. Smallpox couldn’t match that yearly rate, but did polish off 300-500 million of us during the 20th century. Bog standard flu kills between a quarter and a half million every year, and if we wanted to go back further, the Black Death wiped out at least a third of the population of Europe. And let’s not forget HIV with its 30 million deaths to date.

See on blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk

See on Scoop.it – Virology News

A year on from the first reported human case of infection with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), the world still has few answers to the most pressing question from a public-health perspective: what is the source of the steady stream of new cases? Only with this information can the outbreak be controlled.

See on www.nature.com

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Brome mosaic virus (BMV) packages its genomic and subgenomic RNAs into three separate viral particles. BMV purified from barley, wheat, and tobacco have distinct relative abundances of the encapsidated RNAs. We seek to identify the basis for the host-dependent differences in viral RNA encapsidation. Sequencing of the viral RNAs revealed recombination events in the 3′ untranslated region of RNA1 of BMV purified from barley and wheat, but not from tobacco. However, the relative amounts of the BMV RNAs that accumulated in barley and wheat are similar and RNA accumulation is not sufficient to account for the difference in RNA encapsidation. Virions purified from barley and wheat were found to differ in their isoelectric points, resistance to proteolysis, and contacts between the capsid residues and the RNA. Mass spectrometric analyses revealed that virions from the three hosts had different post-translational modifications that should impact the physiochemical properties of the virions. Another major source of variation in RNA encapsidation was due to the purification of BMV particles to homogeneity. Highly enriched BMV present in lysates had a surprising range of sizes, buoyant densities, and distinct relative amounts of encapsidated RNAs. These results show that the encapsidated BMV RNAs reflect a combination of host effects on the physiochemical properties of the viral capsids and the enrichment of a subset of virions. The previously unexpected heterogeneity in BMV should influence the timing of the infection and also the host innate immune responses.

See on www.sciencedirect.com

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Available in: NOOK Book (eBook), Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook. This science-based thriller from Wil Mara will chill you to your coreBob Easton thinks he has a cold. Before he dies in agony, four days later, he infects dozens of people.

See on www.barnesandnoble.com

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Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is a persistent threat of economically significant influence to the swine industry worldwide. Recombinant DNA technology coupled with tissue culture technology is a viable alternative for the inexpensive production of heterologous proteins in planta. Embryogenic cells of banana cv. ‘Pei chiao’ (AAA) have been transformed with the ORF5 gene of PRRSV envelope glycoprotein (GP5) using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and have been confirmed. Recombinant GP5 protein levels in the transgenic banana leaves were detected and ranged from 0.021%–0.037% of total soluble protein. Pigs were immunized with recombinant GP5 protein by orally feeding transgenic banana leaves for three consecutive doses at a 2-week interval and challenged with PRRSV at 7 weeks postinitial immunization. A vaccination-dependent gradational increase in the elicitation of serum and saliva anti-PRRSV IgG and IgA was observed. Furthermore, significantly lower viraemia and tissue viral load were recorded when compared with the pigs fed with untransformed banana leaves. The results suggest that transgenic banana leaves expressing recombinant GP5 protein can be an effective strategy for oral delivery of recombinant subunit vaccines in pigs and can open new avenues for the production of vaccines against PRRSV.

See on onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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“Kafkaesque” is not a word normally used to describe immune responses, but it’s how Dr. Louis J. Picker described what his experimental vaccine did to his rhesus monkeys: “It’s like their T-cells were turned into the East German secret police, hunting down infected cells until there were none left.”

See on www.nytimes.com

See on Scoop.it – Virology and Bioinformatics from Virology.ca

Barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV) is the type member of the genus Hordeivirus, rigid, rod-shaped viruses in the family Virgaviridae. We have used fiber diffraction and cryo-electron microscopy to determine the helical symmetry of BSMV to be 23.2 subunits per turn of the viral helix, and to obtain a low-resolution model of the virus by helical reconstruction methods. Features in the model support a structural relationship between the coat proteins of the hordeiviruses and the tobamoviruses.

See on www.sciencedirect.com