Virus Musings

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Various thoughts on all aspects of all viruses

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From a virus' perspective, how do you translate your own messenger RNA (mRNA), whilst not allowing your host cell to continue manufacturing its own proteins, including those that might be detrimental to virus survival? It's a problem viruses have found various ways to overcome, often by manipulating the biology of the mRNAs, which have the following structure: The classical polyadenylated mRNA ready for translation Simply, an eIF4F cap-binding complex binds to the cap and a poly(A) […]

Rubio, R., Mora, S., Romero, P., Arias, C. & Lopez, S. (2013). Rotavirus Prevents the Expression of Host Responses by Blocking the Nucleocytoplasmic Transport of Polyadenylated mRNAs, Journal of Virology, 87 (11) 6336-6345. DOI: 10.1128/JVI.00361-13

Piron, M. (1998). Rotavirus RNA-binding protein NSP3 interacts with eIF4GI and evicts the poly(A) binding protein from eIF4F, The EMBO Journal, 17 (19) 5811-5821. DOI: 10.1093/emboj/17.19.5811

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Gold Rush: what the Hoffman crew face

In the four weeks recuperating with a sling from shoulder surgery there's only so much reading and one-handed typing you can do; enter Gold Rush. I found out about this from a research fellow who's arrived from New York. For anyone not familiar (being British I clearly wasn't), this is a reality TV show on the Discovery Channel following a team of guys from Oregon who pursue the American dream by heading to Alaska aiming to mine gold, with a slight obsession for a 'glory […]

Coke, formalin, tea...save your horse from African horse sickness!

African horse sickness (AHS) is arguably the most lethal infectious disease of horses. Like Bluetongue virus, AHS virus is an Orbivirus in the Reoviridae family of dsRNA viruses. Also like BTV (and the bunyavirus Schmallenberg virus), it's an arbovirus that is spread between mammalian hosts by Culicoides midges. African horse sickness: the lungs fill with fluid and the horse essentially dies by drowning. If a horse develops the pulmonary form of […]

Schmallenberg Virus RNA in Culicoides midges

There have generally been two views regarding the use of RT-PCR as a way to say whether Culicoides midges are vectors for arboviruses. One side argues that, if you find viral RNA, then the midges are competent. In both the bluetongue virus (BTV) and Schmallenberg virus (SBV) outbreaks in Northern Europe there were thousands of midges mashed and tested for the presence of viral RNA. Of course, midges were found containing RNA. The other side historically replies with something along the […]

Rasmussen, L., Kristensen, B., Kirkeby, C., Rasmussen, T., Belsham, G., Bødker, R. & Bøtner, A. (2012). Culicoids as Vectors of Schmallenberg Virus, Emerging Infectious Diseases, 18 (7) DOI: 10.3201/eid1807.120385

Veronesi, E., Henstock, M., Gubbins, S., Batten, C., Manley, R., Barber, J., Hoffmann, B., Beer, M., Attoui, H., Mertens, P. & Carpenter, S. (2013). Implicating Culicoides Biting Midges as Vectors of Schmallenberg Virus Using Semi-Quantitative RT-PCR, PLoS ONE, 8 (3) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057747

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Make me a virus: goodbye MTAs

Material transfer agreements - MTAs - can be infuriating. They will almost certainly exist forever, in some form or other. They say knowledge is power, so it's no surprise that people/institutions want to hold on to anything which may offer them a competitive advantage. It clearly makes sense. I've always been curious though about the amount of metaphorical wheel re-inventing which goes on across the world purely due to the fact that MTAs get in the way; considering the time and money it seems […]

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