Contact: Lee Siegel
lee.siegel@utah.edu
801-581-8993
University of Utah

Friend Virus Budding from T-cell

Caption: This electron microscope image shows yellow particles of a mouse leukemia virus named Friend virus emerging or "budding" out of an infected white blood cell known as a T-cell. By allowing the Friend virus to mutate and evolve in mice, University of Utah researchers produced new evidence that an arms race between microbes and immune-system MHC genes is responsible for maintaining an amazing diversity of those genes, even though some of them are responsible for autoimmune and infectious diseases that make us sick.

Credit: Elizabeth Fischer and Kim Hasenkrug, NIH.

Usage Restrictions: Credit required

Related news release: Why bad immunity genes survive