Virus del dengue: estructura y ciclo viral

dengue virus (denv) is responsible for the clinical entity known as dengue that is a great concern for economy and public health of tropical countries. this flavivirus is a single strand rna virus that after their translation and replication in host cells produces three structural and seven non-structural proteins with specific function in replication or cell binding process that we will describe here. intracellular viral cycle has begun to be described and this knowledge will impact the rational design of new antiviral drugs. patients suffering dengue can have an undifferentiated fever or in the severe cases, show an aberrant immunological activation process that lead to soluble inflammatory mediators secretion, affecting tissue function, mainly endothelium. this organ dysfunction is associated with plasma leakage and coagulatory imbalance. despite it has been recently described some host factors associated with severity of infection, it remains unknown some aspects of viral biology or the role of denv proteins in disease pathogenesis. this article pretends to make an updated revision about denv structure, cell viral cycle and introduce some concepts about dengue immunopathogenesis.