Do you remember the retrovirus XMRV, initially implicated as the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome, and later shown to be a murine virus that contaminated human cells grown in mice? Another virus thought to be associated with human disease has recently been shown to be a contaminant, derived from a piece of laboratory plasticware that …
De-discovering pathogens: Viral contamination strikes again Read More »
When you purchase chicken eggs at the market, they usually have white or brown shells. But some breeds of chicken produce blue or green eggs. The blue color is caused by insertion of a retrovirus into the chicken genome, which activates a gene involved in the production of blue eggs. The Araucana, a chicken breed …
On episode #242 of the science show This Week in Virology, the complete TWiV team talks about how two different viruses shape the evolution of an essential housekeeping protein. You can find TWiV #242 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites: they must enter a cell to reproduce. To gain access to the cell interior, a virus must first bind to one or more specific receptor molecules on the cell surface. Cell receptors for viruses do not exist only to serve viruses: they also have cellular functions. An example is the transferrin …
On episode #206 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, Dickson, and Kathy discuss how the innate immune response to viral infection influences the production of pluripotent stem cells, and the diverse mobilome of giant viruses. You can find TWiV #206 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
The genomes of most higher organisms contain sequences from retroviral genomes called endogenous retroviruses (ERVs). These are DNA copies of retroviral RNAs that are integrated into the germ line DNA of the host, and passed from parent to offspring. In most species the infections that lead to germ line ERVs appear to have occurred millions …
