The carp virus taught researchers immunology

The team of Professor Alain Vanderplasschen, a virologist and immunologist at Liège University, published an article in the journal Nucleic Acid Study, reports that a decade of research on carp viruses has been using a protein domain called Zalpha (Zα) to inhibit the defense mechanisms
of host cells.

A fascinating aspect of scientific research is, of course, the consequent serendipitous discovery, something that the team of virologist and immunologist Professor Alain Vanderplasschen of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Liège can only agree to
.

The scientific project began more than a decade ago, when researchers in Lisbon discovered that a carp virus, CyHV-3, had evolved to steal a cellular gene encoding the Zα protein domain.

The Zα domain allows proteins that own it to recognize double-stranded DNA or RNA in a rare conformation that differs from what Watson and Crick described in 1953
.

essay

A fish herpesvirus highlights functional diversities among Zα domains related to phase separation induction and A-to-Z conversion