From the Valley News
August 26, 2020
The mosquito-borne Zika virus can defeat a person’s immune system by drilling into the cellular defenses needed to combat diseases, according to research by a pair scientest from University of California Riverside.
Jikui Song, biochemistry professor of University of California Riverside, and virologist Rong Hai were joined by researchers from University of California Los Angeles in producing a study on Zika virus’s microlevel interactions, published in the most recent edition of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
Key elements of the research spotlighted how Zika pathogens damage a person’s immune response by penetrating defender cells known as interferons.
“Suppressing host immunity is a common strategy employed by viruses to achieve successful infection,” Song said.