PLoS patching: research reveals the mechanism of herpes virus "on" and "off"

November 18, 2019 / Biovalley BIOON / -- recently, a new mechanism has been discovered by Dr Luis M schang and his team from Baker Institute of animal health, which plays an important role in controlling how herpes virus alternates between dormancy and active infection stages Herpes virus can cause symptoms such as cold sores and genital sores, and can also cause life-threatening encephalitis and corneal blindness and other serious infections in newborns The treatment of the virus is difficult because it is hidden in nerve cells and reappears months or years later In schang's team, MI Yao Hu and Esteban Flores Cortes found that the virus switches between the "latent" and "cleavage" phases depending on how its DNA is tightly packed into bundles called chromatin Their findings appear in the November 14 issue of PLoS patchogen (image source: www Pixabay Com) schang said: "symptoms of herpes are due to reactivation of latent viruses That's why antiviral drugs don't cure infections, and why effective vaccines haven't been developed so far Similarly, incubation and reactivation are also the main focus of herpesvirus research " When the herpes virus enters the cell, the cell tries to protect itself from infection by tightly wrapping the virus DNA around the so-called histone and condensing it into chromatin, so as to make the virus enter a dormant state However, if this is not successful, the chromatin can only be loosely bound together, and the viral DNA can be replicated by using cell elements to start lytic infection, thus causing disease Most researchers focus on understanding when and how a gene in the virus genome turns on and off during infection to understand how the virus switches between incubation and cleavage In this new study, however, the team showed that the dynamics of chromatin regulate whether the entire herpesvirus genome is open, which must occur before any single gene is expressed With this new knowledge, researchers can further explore the interaction between viruses and host cells to determine whether virus DNA is expressed This discovery opens up a new direction for exploring how viruses reactivate after dormancy Sources of information: discovery reeals mechanism that turns herpes virus on and off original sources: miyao Hu, Daniel P depression, Esteban flowers Cortes, Judith Breuer, Luis M schang Chromium dynamics and the transcription competition of HSV-1 genes during just infections PLoS pathways, 2019; 15 (11): e1008076 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1008076