Website review: Discovery May Help Defang Viruses
kroztron discovered this in Science/Tech
•1 reviews since Feb 4, 2008
science
•sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/07082811070...
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kroztron discovered 5 months ago- But if the body has been exposed to a vaccine -- weakened form of the virus in this case -- the body can respond more rapidly when it is exposed to the virulent strain. The key to developing vaccines is finding the one strain -- mutation -- that will prime the immune system without causing disease. The Penn State researchers may have done just that. Cameron and his colleagues, Jamie Arnold and Christian Castro, both research associates, have identified a key amino acid in the polymerase of poliovirus that controls the speed and accuracy with which the virus is able to multiply. When lab mice are infected with these mutant strains of the virus, it takes a lot more of the virus to sicken, or kill the animals. Cameron says tests suggest that some viral strains with specific mutation patterns lead to a form of the virus that cannot sustain itself. "By altering a single lysine residue, you not only affect the virus' replication, but also the accuracy with which it is copied," he said. "A virus' replication speed and accuracy is optimized; there is a delicate balance. We have defined the optima for poliovirus but where that balance is going to be for different viruses, we do not yet know."
