Virus Caught on Candid Camera
A model of the human papillomavirus (HPV)
Atomic cameras at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have captured a new model of the human papillomavirus (HPV). The picture may be more of this cancer causing bug than you ever wanted to see, but it gives scientists a valuable closeup. The picture shows, for example, that the virus may look a little different to the immune system than researchers thought.
The picture is really a hybrid of an image from an electron microscope and from X-ray crystallography — a high-tech way to see how molecules are put together. Researchers used the microscope image as the base for the picture, superimposing details gleaned from X-ray crystallography.
The virus now infects about 20 million people in the U.S., and knowing what it looks like at a molecular level helped scientists develop a vaccine–now in clinical trials– earlier this year.
Human papillomavirus, the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease, affects more than half of all sexually active men and women at some point in their lives. Most HPV cases turn out to be benign, but nearly all cervical cancers are associated with infection by one of the cancer-causing forms of the virus.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Stephen C. Harrison and his team published this new image of the virus’s outer coat in the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Journal. While not exactly a photograph, the image is likely a dead ringer for the real thing.
Image courtesy of the Harrison Laboratory.
Tags: Biology, virus virology virologist
