November 18, 2016

I've decided to carry on with my Zika theme from my last blog, but this time looking at it from the mosquitoes point of view and how they are capable of carrying this virus. Researchers Dr. Kevin Myles, Glady "Hazitha" Samuel and Dr. Zach Adelman are Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists at Texas A&M University, College Station and they have been studying the question of "how the virus gets around the insect's immune response" and the answer they found was that the virus makes a protein that suppresses the immune response. When the mosquitoes are infected with viruses, there's a signal that lets the mosquito's cells know that they are infected, resulting in targeting of the virus by the mosquito's immune response. The team found that the protein that suppresses the immune response is also found in the yellow fever, West Nile, and dengue virus which are all of which can be transmitted by mosquitoes. So basically put, the virus and the mosquitoes immune system are at a constant battle because obviously the mosquitoes don't want the virus but the virus knows that the only way to stay alive is to stay on the mosquito. The researchers called this the "evolutionary arms race". By understanding this, they hope to use gene drive, a method targeting specific genes, to go in and help the mosquito. They could possibly make it to where the virus would actually make the mosquito sick preventing transmission to humans. Researchers are looking to see the protein interferes with the human immune response and if it does interfere with human immune response, it could become a target for vaccine development, not only for Zika virus, but possibly other viruses as well. While they say they are far from reaching this point, they are in the right direction to hopefully understand and preventing this virus.

Journal Reference:

1. Glady Hazitha Samuel, Michael R. Wiley, Atif Badawi, Zach N. Adelman, Kevin M. Myles. Yellow fever virus capsid protein is a potent suppressor of RNA silencing that binds double-stranded RNA. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016; 201600544 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1600544113

November 11, 2016

So many of us know of the Zika virus and what is causes if you happen to get infected while pregnant; it causes microcephaly along with several other brain disorders. But if you're like myself, you aren't sure how it happens or why, you just know it does. Luckily there is new research that provides clues to how Zika reaches the placental barrier. Zika damages certain cells that affect the formation and function of the placenta. Aside from that, the herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2) infection develops placental sensitivity to Zika virus by enhancing the expression of receptors that allow Zika virus to enter cells. Researchers in Brazil suspect that something more than Zika virus is causing the high intensity and severity of cases. Their suggests that the immune response to an early infection, HSV-2, may be the additional factor that increases the risk for severity of Zika virus-induced disease. They are hoping that these findings can explain the mechanism of how Zika reaches the placental barrier to access the fetus.

Journal Reference:

1. Paulomi Aldo, Yuan You, Klara Szigeti, Tamas L Horvath, Brett Lindenbach, Gil Mor. HSV-2 enhances ZIKV infection of the placenta and induces apoptosis in first-trimester trophoblast cells. American Journal of Reproductive Immunology, 2016; DOI: 10.1111/aji.12578

November 4, 2016

Good news, researchers have published a high resolution draft of the barley genome. Why is this important? Because by being able to map out the barley genome it will be possible to see the genes at which point are being switched on and off and the mutations that occur during development, which will result in make better beer! Now, I'm not much of a beer person but I bet beer drinkers are rejoicing about this. Aside from making better beer, this publication is a critical step towards barley varieties being able to cope with the demands of climate change. It is also a helpful way to fight against cereal crop diseases that affect the economy when they destroy millions of pounds each year. Barley is the world's fourth most important cereal crop and is also a major component of the animal feed for meat and dairy industries. Barley straw is a source of nutrition for ruminants and is used for animal bedding and frost protection in the winter.

Why hasn't barely's genome been fully mapped yet you ask? Well that is because it is almost twice the size of humans. Its genome contains a large proportion of closely related sequences that are hard to piece together into a linear order. By developing and applying a series of strategies that allowed them to go around the difficulties, the International Barley Genome Sequencing Consortium (IBSC)has managed to construct a high resolution draft DNA sequence assembly that contains the majority of barley genes in linear order.

Hopefully this leads to better beer soon, oh and the progression and preservation of the worlds fourth most important cereal crop!

Journal Reference:

1. Klaus F. X. Mayer et al. A physical, genetic and functional sequence assembly of the barley genome. Nature, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nature11543