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March 25, 2002

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Solving the Structure of the Dengue Virus"

Business Week (www.businessweek.com) (03/25/02) No. 3775, P. 99; Gogoi, Pallavi

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology and Purdue University have discovered the molecular structure of dengue.  In the March 8 issue of Cell, the researchers describe how they developed a three-dimensional view of the virus, which showed that dengue consists of a dimpled, golf-ball-like structure with a protective protein shell that covers a double layer of fatty molecules.  The protein shell and the fatty molecules protect the core, where the disease-causing genetic material resides until it is released into a host's cells.  Now that the disease's structure has been worked out, the team is hoping to find out how the virus fuses with the cells of its hosts in order to develop a vaccine against it.

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