User:Graham Beards/viruses/Applications


Life sciences and medicine

Scientist studying the H5N1 influenza virus

Viruses are important to the study of molecular and cell biology as they provide simple systems that can be used to manipulate and investigate the functions of cells.[1] The study and use of viruses have provided valuable information about aspects of cell biology.[2] For example, viruses have been useful in the study of genetics and helped our understanding of the basic mechanisms of molecular genetics, such as DNA replication, transcription, RNA processing, translation, protein transport, and immunology.

Geneticists often use viruses as vectors to introduce genes into cells that they are studying. This is useful for making the cell produce a foreign substance, or to study the effect of introducing a new gene into the genome. In similar fashion, virotherapy uses viruses as vectors to treat various diseases, as they can specifically target cells and DNA. It shows promising use in the treatment of cancer and in gene therapy. Eastern European scientists have used phage therapy as an alternative to antibiotics for some time, and interest in this approach is increasing, because of the high level of antibiotic resistance now found in some pathogenic bacteria.[3] Expression of heterologous proteins by viruses is the basis of several manufacturing processes that are currently being used for the production of various proteins such as vaccine antigens and antibodies. Industrial processes have been recently developed using viral vectors and a number of pharmaceutical proteins are currently in pre-clinical and clinical trials.[4]

Materials science and nanotechnology

Current trends in nanotechnology promise to make much more versatile use of viruses. From the viewpoint of a materials scientist, viruses can be regarded as organic nanoparticles. Their surface carries specific tools designed to cross the barriers of their host cells. The size and shape of viruses, and the number and nature of the functional groups on their surface, is precisely defined. As such, viruses are commonly used in materials science as scaffolds for covalently linked surface modifications. A particular quality of viruses is that they can be tailored by directed evolution. The powerful techniques developed by life sciences are becoming the basis of engineering approaches towards nanomaterials, opening a wide range of applications far beyond biology and medicine.[5]

Because of their size, shape, and well-defined chemical structures, viruses have been used as templates for organizing materials on the nanoscale. Recent examples include work at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., using Cowpea Mosaic Virus (CPMV) particles to amplify signals in DNA microarray based sensors. In this application, the virus particles separate the fluorescent dyes used for signalling to prevent the formation of non-fluorescent dimers that act as quenchers.[6] Another example is the use of CPMV as a nanoscale breadboard for molecular electronics.[7]

Synthetic viruses

Many viruses can be synthesized de novo ("from scratch") and the first synthetic virus was created in 2002.[8] Although somewhat of a misconception, it is not the actual virus that is synthesized, but rather its DNA genome (in case of a DNA virus), or a cDNA copy of its genome (in case of RNA viruses). For many virus families the naked synthetic DNA or RNA (once enzymatically converted back from the synthetic cDNA) is infectious when introduced into a cell. That is, they contain all the necessary information to produce new viruses. This technology is now being used to investigate novel vaccine strategies.[9] The ability to synthesize viruses has far-reaching consequences, since viruses can no longer be regarded as extinct, as long as the information of their genome sequence is known and permissive cells are available. Currently, the full-length genome sequences of 2408 different viruses (including smallpox) are publicly available at an online database, maintained by the National Institutes of Health.[10]

Weapons

The ability of viruses to cause devastating epidemics in human societies has led to the concern that viruses could be weaponised for biological warfare. Further concern was raised by the successful recreation of the infamous 1918 influenza virus in a laboratory.[11]

The smallpox virus devastated numerous societies throughout history before its eradication. There are officially only two centers in the world that keep stocks of smallpox virus – the Russian Vector laboratory, and the United States Centers for Disease Control.[12] But fears that it may be used as a weapon are not totally unfounded;[12] the vaccine for smallpox has sometimes severe side-effects – during the last years before the eradication of smallpox disease more people became seriously ill as a result of vaccination than did people from smallpox[13] – and smallpox vaccination is no longer universally practiced.[14] Thus, much of the modern human population has almost no established resistance to smallpox.[12]


  1. ^ Sussman, p.8
  2. ^ Lodish, Harvey; Berk, Arnold; Zipursky, S. Lawrence; Matsudaira, Paul; Baltimore, David; Darnell, James.Viruses:Structure, Function, and Uses Retrieved on September 16, 2008
  3. ^ Matsuzaki S, Rashel M, Uchiyama J, Sakurai S, Ujihara T, Kuroda M, Ikeuchi M, Tani T, Fujieda M, Wakiguchi H, Imai S. Bacteriophage therapy: a revitalized therapy against bacterial infectious diseases. Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy : Official Journal of the Japan Society of Chemotherapy. 2005;11(5):211–9. doi:10.1007/s10156-005-0408-9. PMID 16258815.
  4. ^ Gleba, YY; Giritch, A. Recent Advances in Plant Virology. Caister Academic Press; 2011. ISBN 978-1-904455-75-2. Plant Viral Vectors for Protein Expression.
  5. ^ Fischlechner M, Donath E. Viruses as Building Blocks for Materials and Devices. Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 2007;46(18):3184–93. doi:10.1002/anie.200603445. PMID 17348058.
  6. ^ Soto CM, Blum AS, Vora GJ, et al.. Fluorescent signal amplification of carbocyanine dyes using engineered viral nanoparticles. J. Am. Chem. Soc.. 2006;128(15):5184–9. doi:10.1021/ja058574x. PMID 16608355.
  7. ^ Blum AS, Soto CM, Wilson CD et al.. An Engineered Virus as a Scaffold for Three-Dimensional Self-Assembly on the Nanoscale. Small. 2005;7:702. doi:10.1002/smll.200500021. PMID 17193509.
  8. ^ Cello J, Paul AV, Wimmer E. Chemical synthesis of poliovirus cDNA: generation of infectious virus in the absence of natural template. Science. 2002;297(5583):1016–8. doi:10.1126/science.1072266. PMID 12114528.
  9. ^ Coleman JR, Papamichail D, Skiena S, Futcher B, Wimmer E, Mueller S. Virus attenuation by genome-scale changes in codon pair bias. Science. 2008;320(5884):1784–7. doi:10.1126/science.1155761. PMID 18583614.
  10. ^ Genomes. "NIH viral genome database". Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 2012-05-07.
  11. ^ Shors p. 331
  12. ^ a b c Artenstein AW, Grabenstein JD. Smallpox vaccines for biodefense: need and feasibility. Expert Review of Vaccines. 2008;7(8):1225–37. doi:10.1586/14760584.7.8.1225. PMID 18844596.
  13. ^ Aragón TJ, Ulrich S, Fernyak S, Rutherford GW. Risks of serious complications and death from smallpox vaccination: a systematic review of the United States experience, 1963–1968. BMC public health. 2003;3:26. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-3-26. PMID 12911836.
  14. ^ Weiss MM, Weiss PD, Mathisen G, Guze P. Rethinking smallpox. Clin. Infect. Dis.. 2004;39(11):1668–73. doi:10.1086/425745. PMID 15578369.
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