Single mutation gives virus new target

In a new study published online in the journal PLOS Pathogens, an international team of scientists showed that by swapping a single amino acid they could change the sugar to which the human BK polyomavirus will binds on the surface of cells. The BK polyomavirus lost the ability to bind its usual target sugar and instead “preferred” the same sugar as its cousin SV40 polyomavirus, which is active in monkeys. The researchers were working in cell cultures with safe pseudoviruses, which cannot spread, so they did not show that the pseudovirus changed its infectivity from one species to another, but the finding provides a novel demonstration of how easily the binding target of a virus can change as its structure mutates and evolves. Different cells have different bindings targets on their surfaces. A change in a virus’s binding target preference can be a key step in changing how that virus would affect...