Do viruses use vectors to penetrate mucus barriers?
Name
Ribbeck-2009-Do viruses use vectors to penetrate mucus barriers.pdf
Size
230.85 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
9fb96cecb4d698239631ca489d11c766
Author(s)
Ribbeck, Katharina
Date Issued
August 2009
Journal
Bioscience Hypotheses
Publisher
Elsevier Ltd.
Citation
Ribbeck, Katharina. “Do viruses use vectors to penetrate mucus barriers?” Bioscience Hypotheses 2 (2009): 359-362. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
I propose a mechanism by which viruses successfully infect new individuals, despite being immotile particles with no ability for directed movement. Within cells, viral particle movements are directed by motors and elements of the cytoskeleton, but how viruses cross extracellular barriers, like mucus, remains a mystery. I propose that viruses cross these barriers by hitch-hiking on bacteria or sperm cells which can transport themselves across mucosal layers designed to protect the underlying cells from pathogen attack. An important implication of this hypothesis is that agents that block interactions between viruses and bacteria or sperm may be new tools for disease prevention.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bihy.2009.07.004
