Regensburg 2004 – scientific programme

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SYLS: Life Sciences on the Nanometer Scale - Physics Meets Biology

SYLS 3: Symposium "Life Sciences on the Nanometer Scale - Physics Meets Biology"

SYLS 3.4: Poster

Wednesday, March 10, 2004, 16:00–18:30, B

SINGLE VIRUS TRACING: VISUALIZATION OF THE INFECTION PATHWAY OF A VIRUS INTO A LIVING CELL — •T. Endreß, S. Mugrauer, A. Zumbusch, and C. Bräuchle — Department Chemie, Universität München, Butenandtstr. 11, 81377 München, Germany

Viruses play a major role in biology and medicine. A detailed analysis of the different steps of a viral infection is not only necessary to understand viral biology, but also for the development of efficient antiviral drugs and save viral gene therapy vectors. Single Virus Tracing allows visualization of the infection pathway of an individual virus labeled with fluorescent dye molecules (even in the case of labeling with a single dye molecule). The fluorescence of the marker molecule is imaged and used to follow the pathway of the virus with high spatial (≥ 40 nm) and time (≥ 10 ms) resolution. As a first model system we have investigated the infection pathway of Adeno-associated viruses (AAV) into HeLa cells. AAV shows promising results for the use in gene therapy applications. A sequence of events can be tracked starting with a virus approaching the cell surface, successive receptor binding, membrane penetration, endosome formation and trafficking, virus release from the endosome and virus trafficking in the cytoplasm as well as penetration into the nuclear area.
Besides AAV the studies have been extended to other viral particles like HIV. HIV is an enveloped virus, which was labeled at its matrix protein (MA) and its viral protein (Vpr) with GFP and GFP mutants. First results from these studies will also be presented.