Editor’s Selections: Chlamydia – worth talking about, H5N1 the virus, and visualizing phosphorylation
June 11th, 2010 Editor's Selections No Comments
Vincent Racaniello selects several notable posts each week from molecular and cellular biology and virology. He blogs at virology blog.
- Chlamydia persist for long periods by preventing their intracellular destruction by host cells. They do this by degrading the cell proteins involved in cell signalling pathways, such as those involved in the suicide response to low oxygen levels, and in activation of the innate immune system.
- Despite the high lethality of avian H5N1 influenza virus strains, transmission from person to person is rare. There are many reasons for this fortunate property, including the nature of viral receptors on cells, cleavage of the viral HA glycoprotein, and inefficient RNA replication in human cells.
- Phosphate groups are a staple information tag that cells attach to their proteins to switch them on or off or give them special properties. A new optical method allows identification of precise locations within the cell where specific proteins become phosphorylated in response to a stimulus.
I’ll be back next Friday with more selections.
