NIAID-DVI: The Dynamic Dengue Particle -- Richard Kuhn

New Lessons in dengue virus structure and composition and their influence on vaccine strategies
Richard Kuhn
Purdue University

I had the honor and pleasure of meeting Dr. Kuhn where I work and he is fantastically animated and I very much enjoyed listening to what he had to say.

The structure of dengue has been known for more than 10 years via cryo-electron microscopy; however now with more sophisticated tools we can see the virus in ways unimaginable in the past. His group employed a variety of structure and biochemical tools to probe the structure of the dengue virion as well as conformation, composition and dynamics..

Lets look at some particles...

mmm...pretty. Clustering of dengue particles. Source: MicrobiologyBytes

Blog Series: Workshop on Genomics, Cesky Krumlov; Preparation--Genome Structure

Section 2: Genomic Structure

The prep section for genomic structure was small with two articles suggested, one of which you'll need a subscription to read; the other is freely available! Huzzah!

• Alkan, C; BP Coe and EE Eichler. 2011. Genome structural variation discovery and genotyping. Nature Reviews Genetics. 12:363-376. (subscription needed)
• Mills, RE et al., 2011. Mapping copy number variation by population-scale genome sequencing. Nature. 470:59-65. (FREE!)

So lets jump into Mills et al. and learn something...the one caveat to this article is they automatically assume you know what a 'structural variant' is and they are specifically talking about this with respect to the human genome. So lets back-track a little--skim if you're already a structural 'pro'...or better yet, add your two cents in the comments along with other links to clarify this topic.