© Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry / Snezana Mazhekenova
MOSCOW, December 8 - RIA Novosti . Cytomegalovirus, "invisible" and relatively safe pathogen present in the body of most people, gets into our cells by a special trick that completely disarms their genetic mechanisms of self-defense, said in an article published in the journal Cell Cycle.
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is one of the most "successful" viruses that infect humans. More than half of adults aged 40 years and over are infected with the virus that remains in their body throughout life. Usually, the infection is asymptomatic, but if you have problems with the immune system, CMV infection can lead to death, and, as recently revealed genetics to the development of brain cancer.
Anton Buzdin of the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry in Moscow and his colleagues from a number of Russian research centers and genetics from Canada found out how the virus manages to infect as many people, and remain invisible to the body throughout life.
Cytomegalovirus Past studies have shown that the pathogen has the ability to disable a number of critical genes such as the p53, responsible for protecting cellular DNA against damage and "unauthorized" interventions. Russian and Canadian scientists have discovered that this is not all, watching what was happening in the cell cultures during the first three hours after CMV infection.
The results of these observations, as said Buzdin greatly surprised scientists - it turned out that the virus actually has disabled one of the most important intracellular systems - the assembly of micro-RNA molecules. These RNAs are not intended to carry information or fusion protein, and serve as lowering or raising the level of activity of various genes, including suppression of foreign DNA sequences, "inserted" into the genome of viruses.
Typically, a set of micro-RNA synthesized by a cell is constantly changing along with the environmental conditions, but when CMV infection does not happen - it is expressed in terms of academics, literally "freeze" the work of genes and proteins responsible for this process. Stopping the synthesis of new micro-RNAs, according Buzdin and his colleagues helps the virus to freely enter the cell and incorporated into its genome.
Suppressing this extraordinary ability of the virus, as scientists believe, can help us to find a way to protect them from infection, especially in the early stages of pregnancy, when the CMV is especially dangerous, and create ways of "expulsion" from the body cytomegalovirus. Furthermore, similar methods of suppression built-in security systems in the cells can use other viruses are more dangerous for the body and the ability to deal with them will accelerate the search for vaccines and drugs from them.
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