Marburg Virus Structure Revealed in Detail 英文参考文献.docVIP

Synopsis MarburgVirusStructureRevealedinDetail RichardRobinson* FreelanceScienceWriter,Sherborn,Massachusetts,UnitedStatesofAmerica When it comes to nasty pathogens, Marburg virus is among the nastiest. Cousin to Ebola virus, Marburg causes fever, rash, delirium, and severe hemor- rhaging,oftenendinginorganfailureand death. It is rare in the wild, but was a central focus of weaponization by the Soviet Union, and remains a concern for that freezes samples to prevent their distortionintheevacuatedatmosphereof the electron microscope. The virion oc- curredinthreeforms:filamentous,round, andacombinationparticleshapedlikethe number 6 (these three forms likely repre- sent a continuum of possible virion shapes). In the next step, using the same principleasaCATscanner,theycollected manyimagestakenatdifferentangles,and processedthemtocreatethree-dimension- alimagesofthevirions. terrorism experts who fear potentialandresistancetotreatment. its lethal One reason that treatments have proved so elusive is because the virus is so hard to work with—hazmat suits, self- contained breathing gear, and electroni- cally secured airlocks are all required for eventhesimplestofstudieswithlivevirus. But another reason is that the virion (the viral particle) is heterogeneous in shape, and that heterogeneity has confounded standard imaging techniques (X-ray crys- Turning their attention to the filamen- tousparticle,theyfounditwascomposed of concentric layers of different density, whichtheysuspectedcorrespondedtothe different proteins known to make up the virion. To determine which was located where, they sectioned the virions and stained them with antibodies to each of the known proteins in succession, then imaged them in the electron microscope. (Gold particles attached to the antibodies showupasjetblackdotsintheEM).Their workallowedthemtoassignoneormore proteinstoeachlayer,withtheviralRNA linked to a protein at the center. They furtherconfirmedtheirresultsbypurifying the RNA-bindi