Tick Block

Ticks are parasites that prey on the legs of carefree woodland frolickers, among other creatures, and can carry diseases. One of these is the virus tick-borne encephalitis, which can have serious impacts. How it interacts with brain cells, where it can wreak havoc, is not well understood. To see how it does damage, researchers compared cells infected with the virus (left, green, 48 hours after infection) with uninfected cells (right). They found that infected cells couldn’t produce RNA (red), an important form of genetic material involved in the fundamental processes of producing proteins according to DNA’s instructions. Digging deeper, they found that only RNA produced by one particular form of RNA-producing protein (RNA polymerase 1) was blocked, showing the virus was targeting this process in particular. Perhaps knowing this will open new options for tackling ticks and the trouble they cause.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Martin Selinger and Hana Tykalová, and colleagues
• Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, September 2019