Several days ago, researchers were able to map influenza A virus's genome. And a few days later, another team of researchers from the Institute of Virology at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna have successfully decoded the RNP structure of the rabies virus.
Although the individual components of the RNP had already been known, the exact structure of an intact RABV-RNP complex had not yet been identified. Using cryoelectron tomography, an imaging procedure allowing for the three-dimensional representation of the smallest biological structures, and a subsequent computer-assisted analysis by subtomogram averaging, a research team of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna around Christiane Riedel, the study's first author, and Till Rümenapf, the study's last author, has now succeeded in doing exactly that.
-via Phys
(Image credit: CDC/Dr. Daniel P. Perl, Wikimedia Commons)