Interesting idea. I'm still unclear on exactly how the whole RNAi cascade is supposed to work. One paper I was reading made it sound like the end result of RNase deployment in a cell is apoptosis. If that were the case this probably wouldn't be very safe.
Is this true though? I don't believe the cells that Chia finds dsRNA in inside the stomach tissue are quiescent.
However, Prof Nora Chapman states that these non-cytolytic infections, which have part of their genome deleted, are mainly created in quiescent cells. See page 21 of these presentation slides from Nora Chapman.
And I read elsewhere that in a dividing cell, the production of these non-cytolytic viruses that have part of their genome deleted is tiny in comparison to the production of viruses with full and intact genomes. In other words, in a dividing cell, most of the viruses produced are the cytolytic type, rather than the non-cytolytic type.
Although since non-cytolytic viruses may be able to transmit to and infect the surrounding cells, might it be that the non-cytolytic virus is originally created in a quiescent cell in the stomach, and then later spread to the stomach epithelial cells? I looked up the basement membrane cells on which epithelial cells sit, and apparently basement membrane cells normally are quiescent.
Update: in fact Chia says in his paper that the stomach cells he finds infected with enteroviruses are parietal cells, which I believe are quiescent.
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