Informational site about chronic sinus infections

Viruses employ many different strategies to enter host cells. Vaccinia virus, a prototype poxvirus, enters cells in a pH-dependent fashion. Live cell imaging showed that fluorescent virus particles associated with and moved along filopodia to the cell body, where they were internalized after inducing the extrusion of large transient membrane blebs. p21-activated kinase 1 (PAK1) was activated by the virus, and the endocytic process had the general characteristics of macropinocytosis. The induction of blebs, the endocytic event, and infection were all critically dependent on the presence of exposed phosphatidylserine in the viral membrane, which suggests that vaccinia virus uses apoptotic mimicry to enter cells.

It might not be the most elegant entrance, but poxviruses have engineered a way to sneak into cells through the garbage chute. According to a new study, the virus disguises itself as junk so that it will be gobbled by cells cleaning up floating debris. The discovery could explain how smallpox virus, the deadliest member of the poxvirus family, infects its hosts. In order to replicate, viruses must find some way of getting their DNA into host cells. Once there, the DNA takes over the cellular machinery, effectively turning the cell into a virus factory. Most viruses stage this coup by fusing with the cell membrane to insert their DNA or entering the cell whole via small membrane vessels. Poxviruses have been seen both fused with and inside cells, but scientists have been unclear about exactly how they gain entry. Using a light microscope, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich watched fluorescently tagged vaccinia virus--a more benign cousin of smallpox virus--migrate toward target cells. The virus seemed to trigger and enter through a balloonlike structure, or bleb, on the cell surface, which normally only forms during cell movement, division, or death. The researchers found that they could block blebbing and infection by disrupting the cell's "drinking" process, by which cells take up fluids via membrane vessels. The results suggest that the virus relies on this process to enter the cell, the first time such an entry mode has been shown, says cell biologist and lead author Jason Mercer.

Male yeast infections could be as persistent as vaginal yeast infections

When body temperature is not more than 5 F above normal, it does not completely interfere with body functions. Levels above 105 F are dangerous; At 106 F, convulsions are common; at 108 F, irreversible brain damage frequently results. Fevers in a small child needs special care to avoid seizures.

Researchers in Louisiana say they've discovered unique antibiotic proteins in the blood of American alligators that can kill a wide variety of deadly bacteria, halt the spread of common infections and perhaps even stop HIV.

There is nothing against breast-feeding while pregnant with child. Medical research confirms this, so if someone in your family does not agree, you should rely on how you feel and decide not to feed while pregnant, only if you wish not to.