UMN scientists identify 2 mutations critical for MERS transmission from bats to humans
2015-06-11
(Press-News.org) Researchers have identified two critical mutations allowing the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus to transmit from bats to humans. The findings were published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Virology.
Leading the research was Fang Li, Ph.D., associate professor of Pharmacology at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Graduate students Yang Yang and Chang Liu from Professor Fang Li's lab participated in the research. The study was conducted in collaboration with Shibo Jiang, M.D. , Ph.D., and Lanying Du, Ph.D., from the New York Blood Center, Zhengli Shi, Ph.D., from Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Ralph Baric, Ph.D., from the University of North Carolina.
MERS is in the same virus family as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) responsible for a global epidemic in 2003. MERS was first diagnosed in 2012, and has since infected over 1100 people. The illness is deadly in about 40 percent of people who contract it. Recently, MERS has spread to South Korea, where the numbers of infected cases and quarantined people are rapidly rising.
Last year, Li and his colleagues published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealing bats as the likely native reservoir for MERS virus.
In this new study, researchers compared the sequences of MERS virus and MERS-like bat viruses, and found two mutations were sufficient to change MERS-like bat viruses from being unable to infect human cells to efficiently infecting human cells. For viruses to infect host cells, they first need to attach to a receptor on the host cell surface, and then are activated by host enzymes, called proteases, triggering the fusion of viruses and host cells. The two mutations in MERS virus allowed the virus to be activated by human proteases, and hence played a critical role in the bat-to-human transmission of MERS virus.
Li's previous research, published in Science in 2005, showed two mutations were critical for SARS to transmit from its animal reservoir in palm civets to humans. Different from the two mutations identified in MERS, the two mutations identified in SARS allowed the virus to attach to the human receptor with much enhanced affinity. Therefore, MERS and SARS have used two different evolutionary strategies to achieve efficient infections of human cells.
Based on these studies, Li stresses it is critical for scientists to examine the different evolutionary strategies used by viruses so scientists can understand how viruses transmit from animal reservoirs to humans.
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-06-11
Comparing the genomes of different species -- or different members of the same species -- is the basis of a great deal of modern biology. DNA sequences that are conserved across species are likely to be functionally important, while variations between members of the same species can indicate different susceptibilities to disease.
The basic algorithm for determining how much two sequences of symbols have in common -- the "edit distance" between them -- is now more than 40 years old. And for more than 40 years, computer science researchers have been trying to improve upon ...
2015-06-11
PHILADELPHIA -- More than one-third of counties in the Unites States are located more than 50 miles from the nearest gynecologic oncologist, making access to specialty care for ovarian and other gynecologic cancers difficult for nearly 15 million women. While most of these "low access" counties are located in the Mountain-West and Midwest regions, the findings of a recent study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania also reveal that 47 states have at least one county located more than 50 miles from the nearest gynecologic oncologist. ...
2015-06-11
PHILADELPHIA - According to a new study, women experiencing difficulty with time management, attention, organization, memory, and problem solving - often referred to as executive functions - related to menopause may find improvement with a drug already being used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania is the first to show that lisdexamfetamine (LDX) improved subjective and objective measures of cognitive decline commonly experienced in menopausal women. Results ...
2015-06-11
Researchers from Boston Children's Hospital and Merck have built the beginnings of "digital phenotype" of insomnia and other sleep disorders based on data from Twitter. This study, published today in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is one of the first to look at relationships between social media use and sleep issues, and--based on assessments the sentiments expressed in users' tweets--gives preliminary hints that patients with sleep disorders may be a greater risk of psychosocial issues.
The study--led by Jared Hawkins, PhD; David McIver, PhD; and John Brownstein, ...
2015-06-11
Philadelphia, PA - "The impact of human mobility on disease dynamics has been the focus of mathematical epidemiology for many years, especially since the 2002-03 SARS outbreak, which showed that an infectious agent can spread across the globe very rapidly via transportation networks," says mathematician Gergely Röst. Röst is co-author of a paper to be published this week in the SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems that presents a mathematical model to study the effects of individual movement on infectious disease spread.
"More recently, the risk of polio ...
2015-06-11
Washington D.C., June 11, 2015 - A study published in the June 2015 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry demonstrates that the atypical trajectory of cortical/brain development in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) extends well beyond young childhood and into late adolescence and young adulthood.
A considerable amount of work has focused on early structural brain development in ASD utilizing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This body of work has revealed evidence for brain overgrowth during the early postnatal years that appears ...
2015-06-11
CAMBRIDGE, Mass--An MIT team has developed a way of making soft materials, using a 3-D printer, with surface textures that can then be modified at will to be perfectly smooth, or ridged or bumpy, or even to have complex patterns that could be used to guide fluids.
The process, developed using detailed computer simulations, involves a material that is composed of two different polymers with different degrees of stiffness: More rigid particles are embedded within a matrix of a more flexible polymer. When squeezed, the material's surface changes from smooth to a pattern ...
2015-06-11
June 11, 2015 - The well-known "fight or flight" response is part of the inborn series of defense/fear responses activated in reaction to threats. Understanding the steps of the defense cascade can help in forming effective treatments for patients dealing with persistent aftereffects of trauma, according to a review in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.
Child and adolescent psychiatrist Kasia Kozlowska of The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Australia, and colleagues explain the five steps of the defense cascade, in a framework ...
2015-06-11
In a study that seems to defy conventional dietary wisdom, University of Iowa scientists have found that adding high salt to a high-fat diet actually prevents weight gain in mice.
As exciting as this may sound to fast food lovers, the researchers caution that very high levels of dietary salt are associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease in humans. Rather than suggest that a high salt diet is suddenly a good thing, the researchers say these findings really point to the profound effect non-caloric dietary nutrients can have on energy balance and weight gain.
"People ...
2015-06-11
This news release is available in German.
Small heat shock proteins ensure that other proteins do not clot, allowing the cell to survive stress. Defects in these "small helpers" are associated with medical conditions like cataracts and cancer. Now, scientists at the Technische Universität München (TUM) have characterized a small heat shock protein responsible for embryonic development in the Caenorhabditis elegans nematode. Presumably, a similar protein exists also in humans.
Like humans, cells often face catastrophic situations. Even though cells are ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] UMN scientists identify 2 mutations critical for MERS transmission from bats to humans
