As for justice, the visuals are the best evidence to prove something back for scientists to observe in vivo processes is also essential and is always a big challenge. New video footage of a virus that infects cells suggests that viruses spread much faster than we thought. The discovery of this mechanism will create new drugs to deal with some viruses.
Previously it was thought that the virus spread from having to enter the cell, replicate there, and later released to infect new cells, its rate of spread would be limited by the speed with which could be replicated.
However, a virus called vaccinia virus propagated in a different and much faster, according to a new study in the journal Science by researchers from Imperial College London. Vaccinia is a poxvirus and is the vaccine used to eradicate smallpox. Using a live video microscope, scientists discovered that it was spreading four times as fast as possible, based on the speed at which it replicates.
The videos of the virus-infected cells revealed that the virus spreads “surfing” from cell to cell, using a mechanism that enables the virus to exclude infected cells and therefore faster to reach uninfected cells.
Shortly after the vaccinia virus infects a cell, two viral proteins expressed on the cell surface, marking the cell as infected. When subsequently the viral particles reach the infected cell, these proteins cause the host cell expresses a snake-like projections called “actin tails.” These tails propel the viral particles outside the cells to infected and can infect other cells. Viral particles bounce off of a cell surface to another until it finds an uninfected cell.
In the study, the researchers prevented the virus could mutate to surf safely the proteins necessary for actin tails in the early stages of infection and showed a dramatic decrease in halting the spread of the virus.
The researchers believe that other viruses also use these mechanisms and rapidly spreading. For example, the herpes simplex virus (HSV-1), which causes cold sores, lying at a rate faster than it should be possible given the rate of replication. Thus, vaccinia discovered this phenomenon may be a feature common to several viruses. The discovery will ultimately allow scientists to develop new antiviral drugs that block this mechanism in order to spread.
