The West African Ebola Virus

Ebola is a critical disease that has recently spread the country of West Africa. We have also had a few cases in the United States. Ebola is a deadly disease that cannot be contained. As of November 20, 2014 the total number of cases in West Africa is 15,113 (1). There have been a total of 5,406 deaths in the West African outbreak (1). This outbreak has lasted from March 1st, 2014 until the present (1). Scientists across the globe have been working hardly to find a cure for this raging epidemic and this deadly disease. They attempted to make a serum, by which is called ZMapp (15). This serum is made out of engineered antibodies that are used to attempt to fight off the disease without being altered by the disease (15). Scientists have

Most people don’t see how odd the Ebola virus looks under a microscope. The Ebola virus resembles long filaments in the “U-shape” form, as seen to the right (12). The virus has spikes that are 10 nm apart from each other and are on the surface of the virus (12). The Ebola virus has an average size of 80mn in diameter and 920 nm in length (12). The Ebola virus also contains virons, which are the complete, infective form of a virus outside a host cell, with a core of RNA or DNA and a capsid, that vary in length with the longest being 14000 nm (12). The Ebola virus is also coated by a helical nucleocapsid, which is a protein coat and the nucleic acid that is enclosed in it (12). This helical nucleocapsid also encloses a host cell membrane. This host cell membrane is a lipoprotein unit that surrounds the virus (12). The helical nucleocapsid is derived from the host cell’s membrane (12). The Ebola virus is made up of a nucleoprotein, a glycoprotein, a polymerase, 7 polypeptides, and 4 undesignated proteins (12). The genome of Ebola consists of a single strand of negative RNA. Negative RNA is noninfectious itself. The original genome is 3’ untranslated region, nucleoprotein, viral structured protein, VP35, VP40 glycoprotein, VP30, VP24, polymerase (L), 5’ untranslated region (12). The Ebola virus resides in the proteins that contain carbohydrate chains covalently attached to their polypeptide side chains, also known as glycoproteins (10). The structure of the virus is identifies as a putative receptor-binding site on a glycoprotein (10). This is isolated in the bowl structure of the glycoprotein trimer and is masked by a glycan cap domain and an unstructured mucin-like domain (10). Mucins are heavily glycosylated proteins (10). The Ebola virus attaches to and enters new host cells; this shields the surface of