West Nile virus

All organisms face a central conflict; a limited supply of resources must be optimally allocated to competing biological functions. Utilizing robust immune defenses can be energetically costly;, thus, immune function is often diminished when other processes, such as reproduction…

Two cellular innate responses, the dsRNA protein kinase (PKR) pathway and the 2'-5' oligoadenylate synthetase (OAS)/RNase L pathway, are activated by dsRNAs produced by viruses and reduce translation of host and viral mRNAs. PKR activation results in eIF2a phosphorylation. As a …