MicrobiologyBytes

MicrobiologyBytes is taking a well earned rest for a week or so but we’ll be back in January. In the meantime:

Ecologist Jessica Green has found that mechanical ventilation does get rid of many types of microbes, but the wrong kinds: the ones left in the hospital are much more likely to be pathogens:

Draft figures for the new edition of Principles of Molecular Virology!

Not 100% acurate, but pretty and a good starting point if you’re just learning about viruses.

All viruses need to get into host cells, and eventually, get out of them again. Because of the cell wall, plant viruses face particular problems getting into cells, but we’ll think about them another time. To get into cells, most animal viruses use endocytosis, the process by which cells absorb molecules (such as proteins) from outside. Which brings us to clathrin, shown in this excellent video:

Budding or exocytosis of virus particles (at least, the ones which don’t cheat by causing lysis of infected cells) also involves the cytoskeleton, all of which make clathrin a pretty important molecule for animal viruses.

Related:

• Dissecting the Cell Entry Pathway of Dengue Virus
• Imaging Poliovirus Entry in Live Cells
• How can lytic viruses be evolutionarily competitive?

XVIVO has created a nice animation of influenza virus replication. There are a few small points which are not strictly accurate, but overall, this gives very good impression of the processes which go on which cells are infected with influenza virus.

Related:

• MicrobiologyBytes: Influenza
• The Biology of Influenza
• The Great Flu – a free online game

Short Disney film (The Winged Scourge, 1943):

via Twisted Bacteria, via Microbeworld