Viral Fusion Inhibitors

West Nile virus tricks mosquitoes into producing a particular protein complex that allows it to survive and be transmitted, Yale researchers report in the Sept. 3 issue of the journal Cell.

This molecular survival mechanism helps explain how West Nile virus got a foothold for the first time in North America nearly a decade ago, note the researchers. And as temperatures rise in the hemisphere, this mechanism may help public health officials in traditionally temperate climates identify emerging threats from tropical diseases, they add.

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Colorado State University researchers have discovered that mosquitoes that transmit deadly viruses such as dengue avoid becoming ill by mounting an immediate, potent immune response. Because their immune system does not eliminate the virus, however, they are able to pass it on to a new victim.

In a study published February 13 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens, the researchers show that RNA interference – the mosquito immune response — is initiated immediately after they ingest blood containing dengue virus, but the virus multiplies in the mosquitoes nevertheless.

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Dengue fever — caused by a virus transmitted by mosquitoes — threatens 2.5 billion people each year and there is no vaccine or treatment. New research by Michigan State University entomologists has found that a bacterium can stop dengue viruses from replicating in the mosquitoes.

“In nature, about 28 percent of mosquito species harbor Wolbachia bacteria, but the mosquitoes that are the primary transmitters of dengue, Aedes aegypti, have no Wolbachia in them,” said Zhiyong Xi, MSU assistant professor of entomology and study author. “We found that Wolbachia is able to stop the dengue virus from replicating. If there is no virus in the mosquito, it can’t spread to people, so disease transmission can be blocked.”

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A mosquito-borne virus that each year harms up to 100 million people and kills more than 20,000 is a step closer to being controlled after a breakthrough by Queensland scientists.

In a paper published in the prestigious international journal Science on January 2, researchers from The University of Queensland have proved the effectiveness of a new way of limiting the lifespan of the type of mosquito that spreads dengue fever.

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