A European research team says it has made major advances in understanding the virus for the common cold.
The Viennese research team has reported its findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Their study has investigated how the RNA genetic material of the rhinovirus is released in order to infect human cells.
Their study shows how it unravels itself and climbs through the outer shell of the virus – the capsid.
The researchers at the Medical University of Vienna have been working with scientists in Spain at the universities of Barcelona and of Madrid on the project.
Their next step is to find out how the virus knows how to position itself on a human cell and ensure it opens the right pore in a capsid.
Researcher Dieter Blaas, from the Max F. Perutz Laboratories, Vienna, said: "Interestingly we found that the conformation of the RNA, and in turn its interaction with the inner side of the virus capsid changes.
"This seems to be crucial to ‘avoid knots’ when the long thread-like RNA molecule is unfolded in order to exit the capsid."
Uncoating of common cold virus is preceded by RNA switching as determined by X-ray and cryo-EM analyses of the subviral A-particle. PNAS 31 December 2013 [abstract]
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