This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: For years, scientists were certain that two factors were involved in the assembly of active, highly infectious Zika viruses in human cells: a specific viral protein in its entirety and a turncoat human enzyme that assured viral maturity. New research suggests that Zika virus has been far less reliant on those components than previously thought.
In a series of elegant experiments, scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health revealed the precise, step-by-step assembly-line production of viral particles in infected host cells—cracking a code they were surprised to uncover. Zika virus particles, according to the new research, can self-assemble without a large portion of a critical protein that until this study was thought to be a vital production component.
Scientists have now learned that the full-length premembrane, or prM, protein is unneeded in virus production—only a fragment of that protein is required to yield active, infectious viruses. Also unneeded is a molecular cutting step performed by a host enzyme and previously thought to be essential for producing mature viral particles. The research is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The findings revise the basic model of how this mosquito-borne pathogen assembles itself inside infected human cells. The discoveries also point to a potential vaccine strategy that takes advantage of the new findings. In addition to the new Zika virus findings, the team of investigators hypothesized that a similar pattern of production shortcuts occurs in the assembly of active viral particles among other members of the flavivirus family, a group of mosquito-borne viruses that underlie a growing tide of debilitating illnesses worldwide.
Indeed, each key member of the flavivirus family has caused dangerous epidemics. The vast tropical fever belt, which cuts a wide swath from Central and South America, across Africa and into Asia, has long been noteworthy for mosquito-borne illnesses, especially dengue. Zika virus triggered a surprising—and sweeping—epidemic in 2015 throughout Central and South America, causing fetal and neonatal deaths, as well as severe pregnancy complications and devastating birth defects.
"Flaviviruses are a group of medically important viruses, including Zika, dengue, and West Nile viruses, that have recently circulated in the Western Hemisphere," wrote Dr. Kimberly Dowd, lead author of the new research. "Immature flavivirus virions bud into the endoplasmic reticulum lumen of host cells," she continued, referring to the structure in host cells where newly assembled viruses emerge.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
