Friday, January 11, 2019

What is the Mengla Virus?




Researchers in China have discovered a possibly new genus under the filovirus family.

The genetic material of the Mengla virus shares 32-54% nucleotide sequence similarity with that of Ebola and Marburg viruses, and preliminary analyses suggesting that the virus falls between the two and hence there is a need for the creation of a new genus. Mengla's glycoprotein enabled the virus to gain entry to a cell by binding to the same
Niemann–Pick C1 (NPC1) surface receptor Ebola and Marburg viruses utilize. In fact, Mengla has been shown to infect cells just as efficiently as the deadly Ebola and Marburg viruses.

Cell lines that have been shown to be affected by the virus include humans, monkeys, dogs, bats and hamsters. The fact that the virus exhibits broad species cell tropism, meaning that it can thrive in a variety of host cells, makes it dangerously capable of interspecies spillover transmission. No known human infection has been detected, but scientists suggest that screening the surrounding population in Yunnan Province, where the virus was discovered, in search of how many humans have produces antibodies against it is the next step to determining the effects of the virus on humans.

Further concerning, however, is that Mengla is only one of three unfamiliar viruses detected by this particular research team out of Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, but was the first to be thoroughly examined. Perhaps in the coming months, another filovirus genus could be on the horizon as the team begins to work up the other two viruses collected from the fruit bat hosts.

Riasoya Jodah

More details available From <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-018-0328-y>

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