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Ebola virus cracked?

Discussion in 'Science & Technology' started by padre31, Jul 11, 2008.

  1. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    Ebola is a deadly virus that kills the vast majority of infected people, it is relatively difficult to treat, until now""

    Odd... so in my unscientific/not a molecular biologist mind would have to theorize that the Ebola virus developed it's carbohydrate shell, or "horns" totrick host bodies into tryng to process it all the while avoiding auto immune cells that do no feed on carbs?

    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2044044/posts
     
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  2. Celtkin

    Celtkin <B>Webmaster</b> Luxury Box

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    Well, kinda. It is a common strategy for pathogenic organisms and viruses to alter the antigenic parts of itself by masking them in saccharide moieties. This prevents recognition by and activation of the host immune response.

    To my knowledge, the saccharide itself doesn't facilitate the virus in integrating its genome into the host cell.

    :)
     
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  3. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    See that is why "you" are the man Celt...

    And I'm just an imbecile, let me postulate one more absurdity, don't sugars carry positive charges with them? Is it possible that such charges attract cells to the saccharides?
     
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  4. Celtkin

    Celtkin <B>Webmaster</b> Luxury Box

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    No bro. The charge of most molecules, other than free radicals, are neutral. Even water, which has a sight dipole but its overall charge state is zero.

    Viruses dock with receptor proteins via through a protein-protein interaction. The receptor in the host cell recognizes the glycoprotein and gives it access to the cell to facilitate the viral genome to be transported into the host nucleus through NUPS (nucleoporins).

    One in the nucleus, the viral genome is transcribed into RNA and, in some cases, take back out of the nucleus where the viral proteins are made in the cytoplasm.
     

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