Viruses travel light. Most carry just their genetic material and a few tools to break into the cells of their hosts — after that, they hijack the host’s own machinery to manufacture thousands of copies of themselves. In recent decades, biologists have gained a clearer picture of just how this heist is pulled off. Many viruses, it turns out, suppress the messages that cells send to control their daily operations. This information interference shuts down some cellular functions that the attacking virus doesn’t need, and boosts others.
But some viruses do something more subtle and complex, as biologists at the University of California, San Diego, reported recently. The scientists looked at cells infected with cytomegalovirus, a common cause of birth defects. CMV infection doesn’t block cellular messages; instead, it changes their content, the team found. In a new paper in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, they detail thousands of changes in these host communications, which may be the virus whispering sedition to remodel the cell.
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