5 ms·
I am not convinced, especially when the company is hyping it to kill "virtually all" viruses. Far from the majority of viruses contain dsRNA. For example, the
by pak 15y ago
I am not convinced, especially when the company is hyping it to kill "virtually all" viruses. Far from the majority of viruses contain dsRNA. For example, the Ebola virus and rhinoviruses, which cause the common cold, all contain an ssRNA genome. (For this reason I am confused why somebody quoted in the article specifically uses these examples.) HPV and many other categories of virus [1] contain only DNA. It would seem that only this category [2] of viruses would be affected.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DsDNA_virus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DsDNA_virus
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-stranded_RNA_viruses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-stranded_RNA_viruses
- carbocation 15y agoYou're talking about the contents of the virus capsid. DRACO works by killing cells that contain viral dsRNA, which will include cells infected by most kinds of DNA and RNA viruses, because those viruses usually have a dsRNA stage.
- pak 15y agoI don't believe that any DNA virus would replicate via a dsRNA intermediate, since that would be an unnecessary step and therefore anti-selective. You are correct that ssRNA viruses create a dsRNA template while replicating but I would think that this state is transient and therefore not a great target, unless this treatment can target dsRNA strands littered with replication forks.
- carbocation 15y agoSorry, 'stage' was misleading. As described in the PLOS ONE article on this subject, they typically undergo symmetrical transcription. So more accurately, dsRNA & ssRNA viruses typically go through a dsRNA stage. DNA viruses typically produce dsRNA during transcription.
- yid 15y agoDon't forget the cascading error introduced by the news cycle: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174 http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174