Temperature increase triggers viral infection

Researchers at Lund University, together with colleagues at the NIST Synchrotron Facility in the USA, have mapped on an atomic level what happens in a virus particle when the temperature is raised. “When the temperature rises, the virus’s genetic material changes its form and density, becoming more fluid-like, which leads to its rapid injection into the cell,” says Alex Evilevitch who led the study. Viruses lack their own metabolism and the ability to replicate independently; they are entirely dependent on a host cell to multiply. Instead, the virus hijacks the internal machinery of the infected cell to produce new virus particles, which are then released and spread to infect other cells. In most cases, the virus’s genetic material, DNA, is enclosed within a protective protein shell called a capsid. A research group at Lund University is working to understand the process by which the virus ejects its genetic material from the capsid and...