![Clues to Alphavirus Exit Strategy]()
Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne alphavirus that infects millions of people worldwide each year. Understanding how alphaviruses enter and exit the host cells could lead to treatments and vaccines. In a study published November 7 in mBio, Einstein researchers describe a mechanism required for membrane budding, the process by which the virus creates new infectious particles near the membranes of infected cells. They found that a region of the virus’s membrane proteins called the E2 D-loop plays a major role in the interaction of the membrane proteins, E1 and E2. The contact between the E2 D-loop and E1 drives the formation of the membrane structure required for alphavirus budding. The study’s senior author is Margaret Kielian, Ph.D., who holds the Samuel H. Golding Chair in Microbiology and is a professor of cell biology at Einstein; the first author is M.D./Ph.D. student Emily Byrd.
Posted on: Tuesday, December 12, 2017