First Contact

Trying to keep track of a tiny virus as it touches down and burrows into a cell is a bit like chasing a small green ball while it zooms erratically around an entire football pitch. Virus particles are small and disperse widely on entry to the environment. As a result, there are gaps in what we know about the first moments of infection. But a new study has managed to track an individual virus particle as it traverses the cell surface, with live feedback keeping focus on the virus’ journey like an individual ‘player cam’ on football coverage. This new footage showed the virus skimming across the cell surface, testing multiple intermittent contacts in search of the ideal spot (recreation pictured, with surface contacts highlighted in yellow and red). Further study revealed more details about virus-cell interaction that could ultimately lead to new ways to prevent viral infections altogether.

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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• Video from work by Courtney Johnson and Jack Exell, and colleagues
• Department of Chemistry, Duke University; Durham, NC, USA
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY NC ND 4.0)
• Published in bioRxiv, December 2021 (not peer reviewed)