The Viral Talk – Details, episodes & analysis

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The Viral Talk

Federico De Angelis, Bobbie-Anne Turner

Science

Frequency: 1 episode/36d. Total Eps: 31

What is a virus? What does spillover mean? How can viruses infect humans? If these are things that you would like to know but lack the time or energy to research them, then welcome to The Viral Talk, the show which gives brief, direct and easy-to-understand answers to the big questions in virology. I am your host Federico De Angelis, a PhD student studying SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses at the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh. Join me every other week to discover all the aspects of these obscure but fascinating organisms. Join in and Let's Go Viral.

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Those dreaded Coronas with Bobbie Anne Turner

Season 2 · Episode 1

Thursday, October 24, 2024 • Duration 38:13

What are coronaviruses? How are they structured and what is being done to be more prepared next time another one emerges? This and much more in this new episode of The Viral Talk.

Join your usual host Federico and an old friend of the show Bobbie-Anne Turner from the University of Liverpool to hear about the dreaded coronaviruses!

Key points:

The scientific community has known about coronaviruses for a long time. The first coronavirus ever discovered was a poultry coronavirus named Infectious bronchitis virus and was discovered in the 1940s.

The first human coronaviruses were discovered together in the 60s by the common cold unit in the UK, and were human coronaviruses OC43 and 229E;

Coronaviruses are very diverse but have roughly the same genome structure. They all possess a set of 14 non-structural genes necessary to make the proteins that allow the virus to make more copies of itself. And they all possess four structural proteins, which make the building blocks of the viral particle (or virion).
These four proteins, called Spike, Envelope, Membrane and Nucleocapsid all have important functions during infection. Spike is found on the surface of the virus and is the protein that allows it to infect cells. Envelope is thought to have a general role in coordinating the assembly process of the virus inside the cell. The Membrane protein is the physical outer layer of the viral particle, which contains its genome and on which the Spike protein is found, and the Nucleocapsid wraps around the newly made copies of viral genome and packages it inside the virus.
Different viruses can have a variable number of 'accessory' genes, which help the virus during infection by fighting the host immune response or facilitating spread between cells.

Coronaviruses are very diverse, there are four different groups called Alpha-, Beta-, Delta- and Gamma-coronaviruses. Alpha and Beta coronaviruses usually infect mammals, Delta and Gamma coronaviruses more often than not infect birds, but this is not an absolute.
Some coronaviruses are specialists, meaning that they only infect a specific type of host, while others, like SARS-CoV-2, can be quite generalists, and infect a series of animals.
This characteristic is important for emergence and re-emergence, and it tells us that it is important to be constantly surrounding the environment and both wild animals and human-adjacent animals. The biggest example of this is deer in America and now in Europe, as it seems that SARS-CoV-2 has taken a home in white-tailed deer that might act as a wild reservoir for the virus.
Apart from the pandemic, the scientific community is very interested in coronaviruses because in the last 20 years there have been three different instances of emergence of highly pathogenic coronaviruses, with SARS-CoV in 2003, MERS-CoV in 2012 and SARS-CoV-2 in 2019.
There is a lot going on in the scientific community to be prepared for when the next one comes forward. Environmental surveillance is going strong. There are strong efforts to develop a pancoronavirus vaccine to make sure we’d be protected against any coronavirus. There are many international consortia, such as the UK-ICN, the SARS-CoV-2 G2P consortia, and many more, that foster international collaboration, inform governments and integrate lab and social sciences to better tackle the practical problems emerging from pandemics and governance.

For the sciency people

Intro to Coronaviruses: 10.1038/220650b0

History of coronaviruses: 10.33493/scivis.20.01.04

Coronavirus diversity: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.926677

What are the human coronaviruses: 10.1038/220650b0

Relevant links

What’s the UK-ICN? https://uk-icn.co.uk/

What’s the G2P consortium? https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FW005611%2F1

Call to actions

IG profile: https://www.instagram.com/the_viral_talk_/

X profile: https://twitter.com/The_Viral_Talk

Podcaser.com - https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-viral-talk-5094049

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Ask a Professional - Protein expression with Dr Chris Hill

Thursday, May 9, 2024 • Duration 24:42

This is ‘Ask a professional’, the format of the Viral Talk where the focus is on the science but most importantly the PERSON behind the science. From insect-borne viruses to SARS-CoV-2, we’re going to interview experts from the UK and the world on their research and then we’re going to talk about their career, future prospects and tips for younger generations of future scientists. In this episode Federico interviews Dr Chris Hill, group leader at the Department of Biology of the University of York. In this episode we're gonna talk about discovering that the tooth fairy is not real, looking at single molecules down the microscope and the pervasiveness of Imposter Syndrome among young researchers.

For the sciency people:

How do some viruses manage to pack more information than physically possible - 10.1146/annurev-virology-111821-120646

How viruses hijack our protein production machinery - doi: 10.1083/jcb.200205044

The wonderful bioimaging facilities at the University of York https://www.york.ac.uk/research/themes/technologies-for-the-future/bioimaging/#:~:text=Researchers%20at%20York%20have%20developed,more%20about%20Resonant%20Hyperspectral%20Imaging.

Imposter syndrome and how big of a problem it is - https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/women-and-early-career-academics-experience-imposter-syndrome-fields-emphasise

Who is Chris Hill- https://www.hill-lab.co.uk/pi

Follow Chris on X - https://twitter.com/chillzaa

Follow the Viral Talk on IG -

Ask a Professional series - mRNA modification and viral infections with Hannah Burgess

Thursday, November 2, 2023 • Duration 13:26

What are the general strategies viruses use to manipulate RNA? -

⁠DOI: 10.1101/gad.349276.121⁠ How certain host proteins control mRNA length to control viral infections - DOI: ⁠10.15252/embr.202256327⁠ Dr Hannah Burgess' lab - https://www.surrey.ac.uk/people/hannah-burgess#about

Follow Dr Hannah Burgess on X (formerly Twitter) - https://twitter.com/HannahmBurgess

Follow The Viral Talk on X (formerly Twitter) – https://twitter.com/The_Viral_Talk On IG – @the_viral_talk_ On Linkedin –https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-viral-talk/ Leave a Review of the episode on Podchaser.com - https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-viral-talk-5094049

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Ask a Professional series - Bunyaviruses with Mark Stenglein

Thursday, October 19, 2023 • Duration 19:46

This is ‘Ask a professional’, the new format of the Viral Talk where the focus is on the science but most importantly the PERSON behind the science. From insect-borne viruses to SARS-CoV-2, we’re going to interview experts from the UK and the world on their research and then we’re going to talk about their career, future prospects and tips for younger generations of future scientists. Join the host Federico in the first episode of the series interviewing Mark Stenglein, the Associate Professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology at Colorado State University. In this episode we’re going to cover Bunyaviruses (vector-borne viruses), non-canonical ways to academia and how to discover what we like to do. For the sciency people: Review on bunyaviruses - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK8004/ Bunyaviruses reassortment - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042682213004509 Virus reassortment in general - https://doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1004902 Why should we study viruses? Mark’s take on the case of studying more and unknown viruses - 10.1146/annurev-virology-100220-112915 Prof Mark Stenglein lab - https://www.stengleinlab.org/ Follow The Viral Talk on X (formerly Twitter) – https://twitter.com/The_Viral_Talk On IG – @the_viral_talk_ On Linkedin –https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-viral-talk/ Leave a Review of the episode on Podchaser.com - https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-viral-talk-5094049

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Episode 11 - Acute vs persistent viral infections

Season 1 · Episode 11

Thursday, October 5, 2023 • Duration 22:25

What are the differences between acute and persistent viral infections? How can certain viruses stay with us forever and never be cleared? This and much more in this episode of The Viral Talk.

Key takeaways:

An acute infection is characterized by a sudden or rapid development of disease, that can either be resolved quickly or lead to death;
In a persistent infection, the virus is not cleared by our body, and it either becomes latent (e.g Herpes Simplex Virus) or it keeps replicating at low levels for very long periods of time (e.g. Hepatitis B Virus, HIV);
For a latent infection to become a persistent infection, it needs two characteristics: persistence and reversibility.
Reversibility is the ability of a virus to resume active viral replication after undergoing latency, persistence is the ability to stay in our body without being eliminated/cleared for a long period of time.
A latent virus that lacks a way to be ‘re-activated’ only causes dead-end infections.
Herpesviruses and Retroviruses are the only known viral families able to undergo latency.
Latency is a successful survival strategy that allows viruses to avoid being cleared by the host’s defences.
In addition to latent viral infections, there is another type of infection which is chronic viral infections.
In chronic infections, the virus keeps replicating inside the host for long periods of time without being cleared, causing low levels of pathology. The best example for this is HIV, followed by Hepatitis B virus.

Constant rounds of infection by these viruses lead to the onset of the diseases they’re known for, AIDS and hepatitis, respectively.

Articles for the most interested:

General definition of persistent viral infections - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK8538/

Common threads in persistent viral infections -

Episode 10 - How do viruses hijack the cell?

Season 1 · Episode 10

Thursday, September 21, 2023 • Duration 19:02

How can tiny viruses hijack a cell and make it do their bidding? How can they survive a whole organism trying to get rid of them? This and much more in this episode of The Viral Talk.

Key takeaways:

Viruses make three types of proteins. One type to replicate, one type to protect their genome once they're outside of the host, and one to modify the cell they infect at their 'whim'.
The proteins they use to change the structure of the cell often work through 'mimicry'. They have motifs/domains that resemble cellular proteins, which interact with our proteins to either stop their function or re-direct it.
Common to most viral infection is a phenomenon called host translation shut off, in which cellular protein production goes down and viral protein production goes up.
Translation shut off can be achieved by either destroying cellular mRNA or tricking the cellular translation machinery into believing that viral mRNA is in fact cellular mRNA.
Viruses have also evolved multiple ways to shut down the immune response of cells, through accessory proteins that are not incorporated into the final viral particles but without which they don't fare very well.
They have also evolved multiple ways to mimic cellular 'messenger molecules', by doing so causing distruptions in the way cells can respond to infection.
These viral proteins are also very important targets for the development of antiviral drugs.

Articles for the most interested:

DOI:10.1038/nri980 - Viral mimicry of messenger molecules
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4952 - Influenza mimicry of histone 3
DOI: 10.1006/viro.2000.0816 - HIV Nef protein and MHC
DOI: 10.1038/nrmicro267 - Viral Cap snatchin
https://viralzone.expasy.org/1579#:~:text=Viruses%20have%20evolved%20ways%20of,to%20evade%20host%20immune%20response%20 - Nice resource that lists way in which viruses cause translation shut off.

Episode 9 - How do viruses cause disease?

Season 1 · Episode 4

Thursday, August 3, 2023 • Duration 20:18

How do viruses cause disease? What are the processes that make us sick and what can we do about it? This and much more in this episode of The Viral Talk.

Takeaways:

When viruses infect our cells they hijack them and sequester all the resources that the cell might need to stay alive, causing it to malfunction and die.

Infected cells also recognize that they're infected and 'self-destruct' to stop the infection.
When cells recognize a virus they release signals that call in the immune system, which leads to inflammation and cell death.
The virulence of a virus is dependent both on its genomic content and its 'tropism' aka the tissues and cells that it infects.
Influenza has a preference for cells of the respiratory tract and causes respiratory infections. HIV infects immune cells and therefore causes AIDS.
Some viruses like Ebolaviruses do not have a preferred cell and are able to infect most of them, causing very severe, generalised infections.
The type of disease is also due to mutations in our genome, which can make us more or less prone to severe immune responses called 'cytokine storms'.

Links and scientific papers:

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Episode 8 - mRNA vaccines and COVID-19

Season 1 · Episode 8

Thursday, July 20, 2023 • Duration 23:42

What are mRNA vaccines? How do they work and why are they considered revolutionary? This and much more in this episode of the Viral Talk.

Key Takeaways:

Vaccines work by introducing an element that resembles a pathogen into our body, so that our immune system can learn to counter it without the need to get infected first.
Vaccination induces our body to produce antibodies, which are tiny proteins that recognise and attach themselves to the pathogen.
mRNA vaccines are a relatively new technology that inject into our body the instructions (messenger RNA) to produce one or more proteins of the pathogen they target.
COVID-19 mRNA vaccines give the cell the instructions to produce the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein, which is 'used' by the virus to enter inside the cells. In this way, when the virus infects a vaccinated person, antibodies will attach onto the Spike protein of the virus and prevent it from getting inside our cells.
The mRNA vaccine technology has been in development for more than a decade and was initially thought to vaccinate against cancer.
mRNA vaccines are faster to produce, more flexible and easier to update compared to other traditional vaccines.
COVID-19 vaccines do not give people COVID-19, as they do not contain virus particles.
COVID-19 vaccines were produced so quickly because vast amounts of resources and money were put in their development from the get-go. No corners were cut in the experimental phase and many studies suggest that they provide very high protection against severe COVID-19 disease.
COVID-19 vaccines do not contain fetal elements, microchips, trackers or other dangerous elements.
The biggest components of COVID-19 vaccines are water, sugar, lipids and mRNA, in this order.

For your interest:

How do vaccines work?- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SKmAlQtAj8&ab_channel=naturevideo

mRNA vaccines review - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41573-021-00283-5

Episode 7 - Viral Diversity

Season 1 · Episode 7

Thursday, June 8, 2023 • Duration 27:13

How many types of viruses are there? How do scientist classify them and why is it important to know? This and much more in this episode of the Viral Talk.

Key takeaways:

Scientists predict hundreds of millions of different viral species on our planet, but they can all be grouped in 'only' seven different groups.
These seven groups have been theorized by virologist David Baltimore based on the different types of genomes they can have, and how this affects the way in which they replicate.
In nature, almost all organisms follow the central dogma of biology: DNA->RNA->Proteins. But not all viruses follow it.
The seven groups are:

double stranded DNA viruses (e.g. herpesviruses)
single stranded DNA viruses (e.g. many bacterial viruses)
double stranded RNA viruses (e.g. rotaviruses)
positive sense single stranded RNA viruses (e.g. coronaviruses)
negative sense single stranded RNA viruses (e.g. Influenza virus)
double stranded RNA viruses with DNA intermediate (e.g. HIV)
double stranded DNA viruses with RNA intermediates (e.g. Hepatitis B virus)

Knowing how viruses replicate beforehand can give us a heads-up on potential targets for antiviral drug development.
Examples include antivirals against HIV and other retroviruses.

For people who'd like to know more:

Original paper on Baltimore classification - DOI: 10.1128/br.35.3.235-241.1971

Success story on antivirals against HIV: DOI: 10.1016/S0166-3542(98)00025-4

Episode 6 - Bacteriophages

Season 1 · Episode 6

Thursday, May 25, 2023 • Duration 17:51

What are bacteriophages? Are they important for our ecology and what do we know about them? Join the host Federico De Angelis in understanding what these viruses are, what they do and how we can harness their potential.

Takeaways:

- Bacteriophages are bacterial viruses. They only infect bacteria.

- They are the most abundant biological entity on the planet.

- Phages are very specific, with one phage species infecting a single bacterial species.

- Phages have two distinct infectious cycles. The lytic cycle during which they infect bacteria and kill them by bursting out, and the lysogenic cycle, where their genome is integrated in the genome of their host, turning them into prophages.

- Sometimes lysogenic phages establish symbiotic relationships with their host, for example Vibrio cholera, the bug responsible for Cholera, has a prophage in its genome that encodes for the toxin responsible for the watery diarrhea it causes.

- Phages can be engineered to target specific virulent bacteria and treat antibiotic resistant infections.

Additional info for the most interested:

Review on sea phages - https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04160

In-depth article about Vibrio cholera - https://www.nature.com/articles/nrmicro2204

Resource on bacteriophages biology - https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/biology-of-viruses/virus-biology/a/bacteriophages

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The Viral Talk – Details, episodes & analysis

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