US biologists shed light on how deadly virus becomes infectious

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2008

CHICAGO (AFP) — Biologists have mapped how a deadly class of viruses including dengue, West Nile, yellow fever and encephalitis become infectious in a pair of studies published in the journal Science.

"This is possibly the most detailed understanding of how any virus matures," said study author Michael Rossmann of Purdue University in Indiana.

Rossmann and his colleagues detailed critical structural changes that take place as the dengue virus moves from the inner to the outer portions of its host cell.

The findings pertain to all viruses in the family of flaviviruses which are carried by mosquitoes and ticks.

They found that a protein which coats the genome of the virus particle undergoes large changes in its structure so that it becomes capable of...