Researchers from Singapore's Duke-NUS Medical School, in collaboration with scientists in China,
have identified and characterised a new genus of filovirus from a Rousettus bat in China.
Their findings were published in the journal Nature Microbiology.
Bat-borne viruses around the world pose a threat to human and animal health.
Filoviruses, especially Ebola virus and Marburg virus, are notoriously pathogenic and capable of causing severe and often fatal fever diseases in humans by affecting many organs and damaging blood vessels.
Researchers named it the Měnglà virus because it was discovered in Měnglà County, Yunnan Province, China.
The Měnglà virus is genetically distinct, sharing just 32%-54% of its genetic sequence with other known filoviruses.
It is found in different geographic locations compared to other filoviruses.
This new genus, which could include more than one species, sits in between Ebola virus and Marburg virus on the evolutionary tree.
The Měnglà virus also uses the same molecular receptor, a protein called NPC1, as Ebola virus and Marburg virus to gain entry into cells and cause infection.
Thanks for the ping.
I first became interested in deadly viruses when I read Richard Preston’s book “The Hot Zone” many years ago. I try to read every non-fiction book on this subject.
My interest led to two of my children becoming microbiologists and both entered research doing genetic engineering and cloning, my daughter with NIH and Cornell University Med School doing cloning research on Malaria and Babasia.
I have an interesting experience I would like some feedback on. Please keep the Nutty comments to yourself.
Ever since I died of meningitis 30 + years ago my brain changed in that my GABA inhibitory neurons no longer restricted the action potential firing rate of my pyramidal neurons resulting in my consciousness going into the much higher gamma frequencies. This changed my perception of reality to the extent that consciousness itself is a physical object to my perception, including stored memories of people’s past experiences.
My observation has been that viruses have a separate consciousness from the host they parasitically inhabit. The frequency is different. I feel them like a glob and they move around similar to a swarm of gnats. Does this make sense to anyone?