|
|
Article: DNA In Some Viruses At Pressure 10x That In Champagne.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Virus Weekly
- Article date:
- November 13, 2001
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 NewsRX. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
2001 NOV 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The DNA inside some viruses is packed so tightly that the internal pressure reaches 10 times that in a champagne bottle, according to new measurements by biophysicists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota.
The researchers suspect that this high pressure helps the virus spurt its DNA into a cell once it has latched onto the surface. Once the DNA gets inside, it begins retooling the cell to manufacture new viruses. The process eventually kills the cell, but not before generating thousands more viruses to spread the infection.
Such tight packing is achieved by one of the most ...