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:
- 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
Anna Buchman is an SHSU alumn and has been working on gene drives in pathogen carrying mosquitoes. She'll be speaking at Sam on January 26. Contact me for details.
ReplyDeleteI've wondered how mosquitoes get the viruses in the first place that they then pass on to humans. After reading your blog, I now understand how that happens. With so many deaths from diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, this research has the potential to save many lives. I am really interested to see how this research progresses. Hopefully, in the future we won't have to worry so much about avoiding mosquito bites, especially with the birth defects caused by the Zika virus.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is a great idea that they started to look into the carrying source of the virus, which makes sense since they carry it around to humans. This is another method of attack to prevent the spread of the virus to humans, but I feel bad that an option to prevent this is that the mosquitoes have to get sick and possibly die. I hope that they go down the road where they find a way to prevent the virus from blocking its' immune system so the mosquito could fight it off.
ReplyDeleteI almost wrote about this but decided not to. I think this is very important research that definitely needs to continue. This is a great first step and it's cool that the researches are so close to Sam. If the option that mosquitoes get sick and possibly die were to be carried out wouldn't this really effect other species in the ecosystem like fish since that is what they eat? Hopefully there will be another route!
ReplyDeleteWhile we're at it, can they also produce a virus only effective in eradicating mosquitoes. That'd be great! I would save so much money on bug repellent, anti-itch spray, and heartwork preventative medicine for my dogs. Do they really serve an important role in our ecosystem? Not that I know of!
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