Some facts about the current Zika virus ‘outbreak’ in Brazil: A few deaths have been reported in people who had been diagnosed with dengue fever and who died due to worsening symptoms. These patients were shown post-mortem to be infected with Zika virus. Worsening of dengue-fever-like symptoms hence will need to be treated as such…Continue reading Zika virus outbreak in Brazil
Tag: virology
A targeted sequence panel for detecting 34 vertebrate virus families at once
The challenge in detecting a set of viruses simultaneously in clinical samples lies in the large variety of their genomes, i.e. there is no gene that is present in all viruses. With the advent of new sequencing technologies, including high throughput parallel sequence analysis, it became possible to process more sequence data. So much more…Continue reading A targeted sequence panel for detecting 34 vertebrate virus families at once
MIME: Mutational Interference Mapping Experiment – RNA viruses
MIME (Mutational Interference Mapping Experiment) is used to investigate the interaction of RNA with its respective interaction partners in greater detail. In this approach, the RNA of interest is randomly mutated and amplified. The vast pool of resulting mutated RNAs is then mixed with a possible interaction partner, e.g. a protein, is added. Next, the…Continue reading MIME: Mutational Interference Mapping Experiment – RNA viruses
New ancestral origin for Hepatitis A
Hepatitis A virus (HAV) is a single stranded RNA virus that belongs to the picornaviridae (from pico: very small and RNA viruses). The virus causes hepatitis in humans, especially in areas of low socioeconomic status. Until now no related virus has been found in other species. The publication below reports for the first time that…Continue reading New ancestral origin for Hepatitis A