4 ms·

A Single Protein Is the Root of Dengue's Virulence

32 points by snake117 11y ago

Mz 11y ago
Young says the NS1 findings mean that to treat dengue, it might be possible to use existing drugs. Some version of those that treat sepsis, for example, might work. So, my understanding of the article is they isolated the protein that causes a strong inflammatory response and found that this directly causes the blood vessels to get leaky and behaves like a toxin. They have a broad idea of the mechanism whereby Dengue causes so much havoc in the body and can lead to death. Understanding that mechanism means they can infer which therapies already in existence might be helpful instead of playing with lives of patients already in a vulnerable state and kind of randomly trying things. This is really exciting stuff. So much of medicine is vague and hand-wavy. This is a great direction for research to go.
- ghaff 11y ago
  Also found the explanation of the mechanism behind why having Dengue a second time (of a different strain) could be so bad interesting. I knew that was the case--I read some about Dengue when I got it last year--but I didn't know why.
PeterisP 11y ago
Does this imply that we now have identified a simple means (i.e., a single protein with a known encoding) to make a weaponized strain of something popular? You know, just like the common cold or flu, but also causes deadly internal bleeding while it's at it.
- x5n1 11y ago
  Nothing to be concerned about, we have many of these sorts of things already. What's one more?
- Mz 11y ago
  I think probably not. The entire virus is necessary to the process of replication. If you mass produced this one protein, it would likely perform similar to a poison. We have tons of that already, all around us. No big.
rafaelm 11y ago
Very interesting stuff. I always wondered why the second time a person got dengue it's usually more dangerous. My wife got dengue fever about 8 years ago. Two months ago, she caught it again, this time it was the much more dangerous dengue hemorrhagic fever variant. Not fun. Before ,I always thought that it was just a myth that the second time around it's usually hemorrhagic.

32 points by snake117 11y ago

Mz 11y ago

Young says the NS1 findings mean that to treat dengue, it might be possible to use existing drugs. Some version of those that treat sepsis, for example, might work. So, my understanding of the article is they isolated the protein that causes a strong inflammatory response and found that this directly causes the blood vessels to get leaky and behaves like a toxin. They have a broad idea of the mechanism whereby Dengue causes so much havoc in the body and can lead to death. Understanding that mechanism means they can infer which therapies already in existence might be helpful instead of playing with lives of patients already in a vulnerable state and kind of randomly trying things. This is really exciting stuff. So much of medicine is vague and hand-wavy. This is a great direction for research to go.

ghaff 11y ago
Also found the explanation of the mechanism behind why having Dengue a second time (of a different strain) could be so bad interesting. I knew that was the case--I read some about Dengue when I got it last year--but I didn't know why.

PeterisP 11y ago

Does this imply that we now have identified a simple means (i.e., a single protein with a known encoding) to make a weaponized strain of something popular? You know, just like the common cold or flu, but also causes deadly internal bleeding while it's at it.

x5n1 11y ago
Nothing to be concerned about, we have many of these sorts of things already. What's one more?
Mz 11y ago
I think probably not. The entire virus is necessary to the process of replication. If you mass produced this one protein, it would likely perform similar to a poison. We have tons of that already, all around us. No big.

rafaelm 11y ago

Very interesting stuff. I always wondered why the second time a person got dengue it's usually more dangerous. My wife got dengue fever about 8 years ago. Two months ago, she caught it again, this time it was the much more dangerous dengue hemorrhagic fever variant. Not fun. Before ,I always thought that it was just a myth that the second time around it's usually hemorrhagic.