Dengue Fever Virus is Rapidly Evolving
Scientists have been looking at dengue fever and they have concluded that the virus that causes the disease is capable of rapid evolution. This means finding ways to kill the virus is a very challenging task.
Dengue virus is prevalent in some 100 countries worldwide and the signs are that the disease is spreading to more territories. By spreading the genetic diversity of the virus has increased, meaning that the hunt for effective counter drugs becomes more difficult.
Dengue fever is a disease, spread by mosquitoes, that affects over 50 million people a year. The disease manifests as fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, accompanied by a skin rash. In some cases fatal dengue hemorrhagic fever can result, causing internal bleeding.
A researcher at Duke-NUS called Eng Eong Ooi has recently found a new strain of dengue, called serotype 2 virus (DENV-2). This stain has evolved from and replaced another form of the virus that was common during the 1990s, in Puerto Rico. The dengue virus has four known serotypes (DENV1-4) circulating in nature.
The virus was able to make this genetic transformation due to three mutations that have been discovered in the tail of the dengue viral genome. Through these mutations the viral strain was able to suppress the human antiviral response. This allowed the newly emerging strain to spread, infect more mosquitoes and thus infect more people.
The study is important because it provides a new understanding as to how the virus mutates and this insight might offer ways to combat the virus. Studying the virus at the genetic level also provides information about which stains of the virus are most likely to trigger epidemics. This information is useful in dengue surveillance.
The research has been published in the journal Science (“Dengue subgenomic RNA binds TRIM25 to inhibit interferon expression for epidemiological fitness.”)
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.thelatestnews.com
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