Hi,
I was wondering if anyone could help me with regards to the morphology
of herpesviruses. As part of my honours project I am looking at a
replication defective mutant of murine cytomegalovirus. Under electron
microscopy, this mutant appears to have a high proportion of virions
which appear to be just an enveloped, homogenous, electron dense
material. These are also present in wild-type, but represent a much
lower proportion. I am presuming that the intact virions are the ones
which have an electron dense core surrounded by a pale region, then the
envelope, rather than being wholy dark. I thought they may represent
dense bodies but the literature I have found does not really give me
any idea about how these look like under EM, and much of the literature
seems to disagree on what dense bodies are like anyway. Also, a lot of
references say that dense bodies are found only in the cytoplasm, but
these are found throughout. I was hoping someone knew of some references
I could look at, or anyone who I could contact. Thanks heaps !!!
Joanna Guy, Microbiology, University of Western Australia
