Biology Commons^™

The Effect Of The Zika Virus On Rna Stress Granule Components, Nina Williams

Biological Sciences

In recent years, Zika virus (ZIKV) has taken over mainstream media. It captivated the world with the images of microcephaly babies born to infected mothers and the appearance of Guillain-Barré syndrome emerging from infected adults. ZIKV is transmitted by the Aedes mosquito. This virus is composed of a single-stranded positive-sense RNA genome that belongs to the Flaviviridae family. Our long-term goal is to understand the mechanisms in which the virus subverts the host organism’s translation machinery by modulation of RNA stress granules (SGs). Stress granules are RNA-protein complexes found in the cytoplasm that form when the cell is exposed to …