A few months ago, Cynthia Burrows and Aaron Fleming, professors at the University of Utah, had a simple question about the Zika virus.
“I stuck my head in the lab and said, ‘Are there any G-quadruplexes in the Zika genome? I wonder what it looks like,'" Burrows said. "And Aaron said, ‘I don’t know, I’ll go look.'"
Basically, they wanted to find out if Zika virus contains genetic structures similar to other viruses in the Flaviviridae family. So they compared 78 strains of Zika to other viruses. Think Dengue Virus, the Yellow Fever Virus and the West Nile. Burrows and Fleming found that Zika shares seven G-quadruplexes—a specific genetic structure—with its viral cousins.
“And that was a very interesting observation," Fleming said. "Why would a whole family of viruses maintain these unique secondary structures in their genome?”
Burrows said now that they know there are these similarities in the genome structures of the different viruses, they have even more questions.
“What we do in basic research is try to understand how things work so that if you understand the organism, then you understand hopefully how to control it—how to keep it in check," Burrows said.
Burrows lab isn’t the place looking into possible drugs to combat the virus. This is actually the first time her lab has done this kind of research. But, she said as they come to understand this family of viruses better, they will be better able to fight against all of them in the future.
“Infections disease is something that is incredibly important to the world right now," Burrows said. "Every advance that we can make in basic research helps those who are trying to combat these diseases.”
