go. Protein projectiles (red) growing the virus particles away towards uninfected cells.
Science / AAAS
"Mine, all mine!" This is what the vaccinia virus seems to say after it invades a cell and prevents his companions to follow suit. But the behavior is selfish sentence. The researchers found that the strategy actually helps spread the virus as it speeds up the targeting of uninfected cells. This previously unknown mechanism may lead to new ways to fight against viral infections.
vaccinia does not cause disease in humans, but it helped us to fight them. Thank you to its resemblance to the smallpox virus, the researchers were able to use the vaccine as a vaccine against the disease, eventually leading to its eradication in the late 1970. Since then, scientists have continued to study vaccinia as a platform to develop vaccines against other diseases.
Nevertheless this study, researchers have lacked a curious feature of the biology of the virus, said virologist Geoffrey Smith of Imperial College London. While carefully watching the fields of cell destruction caused by the virus - called plaques - he and his colleagues noticed that vaccinia spread four times faster than its replication cycle would. "Nobody seemed to have done the math," says Smith.
So, Smith and colleagues dug a little deeper. They found that the vaccine produces two proteins right after it infects a cell. proteins work together to form a complex on the cell surface which prevents other vaccinia virus particles from entering (a process called superinfection). When other vaccinia virus impinge, long projections of another protein, actin, grows from the cell membrane, causing the virus to bounce. "the novelty here, with vaccinia, is that it is not only prevent the superinfecting virus, but physically it is repelling the virus away, "said Smith, whose team reports its findings today in Science .
many other viruses, such as herpes simplex virus, seem use similar infection strategies, Mr. Smith. Assuming they use the same protein complex as vaccinia, he says, researchers might be able to fight these infections by blocking the interaction of the two proteins.
cell biologist Michael Way of the London Research Institute accepts that other viruses can also use the strategy of infection with vaccinia virus. "I think it may be more general than people realize."
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