. Scientific Frontline: Virology
Showing posts with label Virology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Virology. Show all posts

Friday, September 30, 2022

Chipping away at the many unknowns of obscure animal viruses

Patas monkeys are among the wild African monkeys believed to be natural reservoirs for the simian hemorrhagic fever virus. 
Photo Credit: Andrew S

Researchers have identified enough biological details about a virus endemic in African primates to suggest that this virus, which causes a hemorrhagic fever disease in monkeys, has decent potential to spill over to humans.

The findings suggest a surveillance program is warranted for citizens in Africa who may be at risk for exposure to the virus. But the study teaches a much larger lesson as well, researchers say: It’s never too early to start preparing for the next animal virus to come along and unexpectedly cause disease in people.

“There are a lot of unknown animal viruses out there that may pose risk to humans,” said Cody Warren, first author of the study and assistant professor of veterinary biosciences at The Ohio State University.

“We need to be prospectively looking at animal viruses that have been ignored to see if they have the capacity to replicate in human cells. If they do, will we continue to ignore them? I don’t think we should,” he said.

Warren completed this work at the University of Colorado Boulder as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of senior author Sara Sawyer, professor of molecular, cellular & developmental biology.

Study reveals how COVID-19 damages the heart

Image Credit: Sanjay k j

University of Queensland researchers have discovered how COVID-19 damages the heart, opening the door to future treatments.

This initial study – featuring a small cohort – found COVID-19 damaged the DNA in cardiac tissue, which wasn’t detected in influenza samples.

UQ Diamantina Institute researcher Dr Arutha Kulasinghe said the team found while COVID-19 and influenza are both severe respiratory viruses, they appeared to affect cardiac tissue very differently.

“In comparison to the 2009 flu pandemic, COVID has led to more severe and long-term cardiovascular disease but what was causing that at a molecular level wasn’t known,” Dr Kulasinghe said.

“During our study, we couldn’t detect viral particles in the cardiac tissues of COVID-19 patients, but what we found was tissue changes associated with DNA damage and repair.

“DNA damage and repair mechanisms foster genomic instability and are related to chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, atherosclerosis and neurodegenerative disorders, so understanding why this is happening in COVID-19 patients is important.”

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

To Stop Viruses, SDSU Researchers are Figuring Out How They're Built

Multiple protein subunits (green, purple and red) of a plant-infecting virus have separate nucleation and growth phases similar to the MS2 bacteria-infecting virus (right).
Source: Protein Data Bank.

An SDSU team, along with Harvard and UCLA collaborators, are researching how distantly related viruses self-organize to improve disease-fighting tactics.

Without a multi-page instruction manual or a commanding Captain America, how do viruses assemble hundreds of individual pieces into elaborate structures capable of spreading disease?

Solving the secret of self-assembly can pave the way for engineering advancements like molecules and robots that put themselves together. It could also contribute to more efficient packaging, automated delivery and targeted design of medicine in the fight against viruses that cause colds, diarrhea, liver cancer and polio.

“If we understand the physical rules of how viruses assemble, then we can try to make them form incorrect structures to hinder their spread,” said Rees Garmann, a chemist at San Diego State University and lead author of a new paper published in the journal PNAS that fills in a piece of the puzzle.

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Mysterious soil virus gene seen for first time

Crystals of the soil virus AMG product (chitosanase) at 400x magnification. Individual crystals were cryo-cooled in liquid nitrogen before being exposed to the powerful SSRL X-rays beams for structure analysis.
Credit: Clyde Smith/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

In every handful of soil, there are billions of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, all working to sustain the cycle of life. Understanding how these microorganisms interact with one another helps scientists analyze soil health, soil carbon and nutrient cycling, and even the ways in which dead insects decompose.

Soil viruses contain genes that appear to have some metabolic function, but they are clearly not required for normal viral replication. These genes are called auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) and they produce proteins, some of which are enzymes that have a variety of functions. Until now, scientists have wondered whether some AMG proteins play a role in critical soil processes, like carbon cycling. To find out more about soil AMGs, researchers determined the atomic structure of a protein that is expressed by a particular AMG.

Specifically, researchers irradiated fragile crystallized protein samples with high-brightness X-rays generated by the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource’s (SSRL) Beam Line 12-2 at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The X-rays struck the proteins within the crystal samples, revealing their molecular structures and a bit of the mystery behind their makeup.

AMGs do not, like many viral genes, help a virus replicate. Instead, they encode a variety of proteins, each with their own predicted function. The AMG that was expressed was a putative enzyme that plays a key role in how soils process and cycle carbon in the biosphere.

The first look at how rabies affects vampire bat social behavior

Researchers said no previous studies had tried to quantify changes in grooming habits in vampire bats infected with rabies – despite the possibility that they might infect each other through the licking and chewing that constitute the grooming behavior they engage in for up to 5% of their active time in the roost.
Photo credit: Rachel Moon

Vampire bats infected with the rabies virus aren’t likely to act stereotypically “rabid,” according to a new study – instead, infected male bats tended to withdraw socially, scaling back on the common habit of grooming each other before they died of the disease.

The study was the first to observe how rabies affects vampire bat social behavior, and one of only a few research efforts to understand how rabies infection impacts behavior in one of the species most responsible for causing rabies outbreaks in humans and livestock in Latin America. The virus is typically transmitted to other species by direct contact between vampire bats’ infected saliva and the broken skin of the livestock or other animals (and, rarely, humans) they bite to feed on blood.

In the roost, vampire bats might infect each other through the licking and chewing that constitute the grooming behavior they engage in for up to 5% of their active time, said Gerald Carter, senior author of the study and assistant professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology at The Ohio State University.

Friday, September 16, 2022

Higher risk of serious COVID-19 complications in children with immunodeficiency

Qiang Pan Hammarström, professor at Karolinska Institutet.
Photo credit: Erik Flyg.

Children with certain immunodeficiency diseases carry mutations in genes that regulate the body’s immune system against viral infections and they have a higher mortality rate due to COVID-19. This is according to a study by researchers from Karolinska Institutet, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (PDF).

Most children infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus develop a mild illness or show no symptoms at all. But for a small percentage, serious complications may develop.

“Mortality is much higher among children with primary immunodeficiency diseases infected with SARS-CoV-2. Our results indicate that basic immunological examination and genetic analysis should be conducted in children with severe COVID-19 or multi-inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C). The clinicians will then be able to help these children with more precise therapies based on their genetic changes,” says Qiang Pan-Hammarström, professor at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet, who led the study.

How the infection affects patients with primary immunodeficiency diseases, i.e. hereditary and congenital diseases of the immune system, is controversial. Even among these patients, some suffer from severe COVID-19 while others experience mild or no symptoms.

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Airway antibodies protect against omicron infection

Charlotte Thålin, assistant chief physician and associate professor at Department of Clinical Sciences, Danderyds Hospital, Karolinska Institutet, led the study.
Credit: Ludvig Costyal
High levels of antibodies in the airways reduce the risk of being infected by omicron, but many do not receive measurable antibody levels in the airways desperate three doses of SARS-Cov-2 vaccine. It shows a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Danderyds Hospital.

The COMMUNITY study started in the spring of 2020 with a provincial collection of 2,149 employees at Danderyds Hospital. The study participants and their immune response to the coronavirus sars-cov-2 have since followed up every four months. At the beginning of 2022, a study was conducted in which 338 employees who received three doses of vaccine were regularly screened for SARS-Cov-2 infection. Of those who were not infected at the start of the study, sixth participants (57 people) were infected with omics during the course of the study. This allowed the research team to investigate what protects against infection and what the immune response after omicron infection looks like.

Friday, September 9, 2022

Vaccine expected to induce strong monkeypox virus immune response, research shows

An electron microscope image of monkeypox virus particles.
Credit: Dr Jason A. Roberts, Head of Electron Microscopy and Structural Virology at The Royal Melbourne Hospital's Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, Doherty Institute.

New research suggests recommended vaccinia virus (VACV)-based vaccines will mount a robust immune response against the monkeypox virus observed in the current outbreak (MPXV-2022).

Since the new virus was first observed in early May 2022, over 52,000 cases have been confirmed in more than 90 countries, including Australia, where 124 cases have been diagnosed (confirmed and probable).

The study, co-led by University of Melbourne Professor Matthew McKay, ARC Future Fellow and Honorary Professor at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, and Professor Ahmed Abdul Quadeer, Research Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, was published in the international journal Viruses.

Weeks after the new strain emerged, the team undertook genomic research to find out if the genetic mutations observed in MPXV-2022 may affect vaccine-induced immune responses against monkeypox.

Scientists Create Mathematical Model for Nanoparticle and Virus Dynamics in Cells

Dmitry Aleksandrov and Sergey Fedotov (left to right) determined the behavior of viruses in cells.
 Photo credit: Ilya Safarov

Physicists and mathematicians at the Ural Federal University and the University of Manchester have for the first time created a complex mathematical model that calculates the distribution of nanoparticles (particularly viruses) in living cells. Using the mathematical model, scientists have figured out how nanoparticles cluster (merge into a single particle) inside cells, namely in cellular endosomes, which are responsible for sorting and transporting proteins and lipids.

These calculations will be useful for medical purposes because, on the one hand, they show how viruses behave when they enter cells and tend to replicate. On the other hand, the model allows the exact amount of medication needed for therapy to be as effective as possible and with minimal side effects. The scientists published the model description and calculation results in Crystals, Cancer Nanotechnology and Mathematics.

"The processes in cells are extremely complex, but in simple terms, viruses use different variants to reproduce. Some deliver genetic material directly into the cytoplasm. Others use the endocytosis pathway: they deliver the viral genome by releasing it from the endosomes. If viruses stay in the endosomes, the acidity increases there, and they die in the lysosomes. So, our model allowed us to find out, first of all, when and which viruses "escape" from endosomes in order to survive. For example, some influenza viruses are low-pH-dependent viruses; they fuse with the endosome membrane and release their genome into the cytoplasm. Secondly, we found out that it is easier for viruses to survive in endosomes during clustering, when two particles merge and tend to form a single particle," says Dmitry Aleksandrov, Head of the Multi-Scale Mathematical Modeling Laboratory at UrFU.

Thursday, September 8, 2022

SARS-CoV-2 protein caught severing critical immunity pathway

This image shows how SARS-CoV-2 Mpro recognizes and cuts NEMO based on the crystal structure determined using a powerful X-ray beam at SSRL Beam Line 12-2.
Credit: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Over the past two years, scientists have studied the SARS-CoV-2 virus in great detail, laying the foundation for developing COVID-19 vaccines and antiviral treatments. Now, for the first time, scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have seen one of the virus’s most critical interactions, which could help researchers develop more precise treatments.

The team caught the moment when a virus protein, called Mpro, cuts a protective protein, known as NEMO, in an infected person. Without NEMO, an immune system is slower to respond to increasing viral loads or new infections. Seeing how Mpro attacks NEMO at the molecular level could inspire new therapeutic approaches.

To see how Mpro cuts NEMO, researchers funneled powerful X-rays from SLAC’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) onto crystallized samples of the protein complex. The X-rays struck the protein samples, revealing what Mpro looks like when it dismantles NEMO’s primary function of helping our immune system communicate.

“We saw that the virus protein cuts through NEMO as easily as sharp scissors through thin paper,” said co-senior author Soichi Wakatsuki, professor at SLAC and Stanford. “Imagine the bad things that happen when good proteins in our bodies start getting cut into pieces.”

The images from SSRL show the exact location of NEMO’s cut and provide the first structure of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro bound to a human protein.

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Long COVID after mild SARS-CoV-2 infection: persistent heart inflammation might explain heart symptoms

Visualization of heart inflammation by means of MRI: cardiologist Dr Valentina Puntmann monitors a study participant at the Institute for Experimental and Translational Cardiovascular Imaging at University Hospital Frankfurt.
Credit: Goethe-Universität

The research team led by Dr Valentina Puntmann and Professor Eike Nagel from University Hospital Frankfurt and Goethe University Frankfurt followed up around 350 study participants without previously known heart problems who had recovered from a SARS-CoV-2 infection. They found that over half of them still reported heart symptoms almost a year later, such as exercise intolerance, tachycardia and chest pain. According to the study, these symptoms can be attributed to mild but persistent cardiac inflammation. Pronounced structural heart disease is not a characteristic of the syndrome.

After recovering from a SARS-CoV-2 infection, many people complain of persistent heart complaints, such as poor exercise tolerance, palpitations or chest pain, even if the infection was mild and there were no known heart problems in the past. Earlier studies, predominantly among young, physically fit individuals, were already able to show that mild cardiac inflammation can occur after COVID-19. However, the underlying cause of persistent symptoms, and whether this changes over time, was unknown.

A team of medical scientists led by Dr Valentina Puntmann and Professor Eike Nagel from the Institute for Experimental and Translational Cardiovascular Imaging at University Hospital Frankfurt followed up 346 people – half of them women – between the age of 18 and 77 years, in each case around four and eleven months after the documented SARS-CoV-2 infection. For this purpose, the team analyzed the study participants' blood, conducted heart MRIs, and recorded and graded their symptoms using standardized questionnaires.

Thursday, September 1, 2022

New methodology predicts coronavirus and other infectious disease threats to wildlife

The rate that emerging wildlife diseases infect humans has steadily increased over the last three decades. Viruses, such as the global coronavirus pandemic and recent monkeypox outbreak, have heightened the urgent need for disease ecology tools to forecast when and where disease outbreaks are likely. A University of South Florida assistant professor helped develop a methodology that will do just that – predict disease transmission from wildlife to humans, from one wildlife species to another and determine who is at risk of infection.

The methodology is a machine-learning approach that identifies the influence of variables, such as location and climate, on known pathogens. Using only small amounts of information, the system is able to identify community hot spots at risk of infection on both global and local scales.

“Our main goal is to develop this tool for preventive measures,” said co-principal investigator Diego Santiago-Alarcon, assistant professor of integrative biology. “It’s difficult to have an all-purpose methodology that can be used to predict infections across all the diverse parasite systems, but with this research, we contribute to achieving that goal.”

With help from researchers at the Universiad Veracruzana and Instituto de Ecologia, located in Mexico, Santiago-Alarcon examined three host-pathogen systems – avian malaria, birds with West Nile virus and bats with coronavirus – to test the reliability and accuracy of the models generated by the methodology.

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Treat hepatitis E virus better after transplantation

The joint partners of the HepEDiaSeq project (from left): André Gömer (RUB); Prof. Dr. Heiner Wedemeyer (MHH); Dr. Patrick Behrendt (MHH); Dr. Christina Hecker (Kairos GmbH); Timothy Göhring (Kairos GmbH); Prof. Dr. Tanja Vollmer (HDZ); Prof. Dr. Eike Steinmann (RUB); Birgit Drawe (HDZ); Dr. Daniel Todt (RUB).
Credit: Department of Molecular and Medical Virology

A precise analysis procedure is intended to enable decision aids for the treatment of hepatitis E infection.

Hundreds of thousands of people are infected with the hepatitis E virus (HEV) in Germany every year; most don't notice it. With a weakened immune system, the disease can become dangerous, even after an organ transplant. Treating the disease more successfully in this case is the goal of the “HepEDiaSeq” project, which is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Eike Steinmann, head of the Molecular and Medical Virology Department at RUB, has started. The project team develops a procedure to recognize viral variants and thus give decision aids for the therapy. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research for around 1.5 million euros for three years.

In addition to Prof. Dr. Eike Steinmann private lecturer Dr. Tanja Vollmer from the Institute for Laboratory and Transfusion Medicine at the Heart and Diabetes Center North Rhine-Westphalia - University Clinic of the RUB, Prof. Dr. Heiner Wedemeyer from the Clinic for Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology at the Hannover Medical School and private lecturer Dr. Christian Stephan from KAIROS GmbH. The scientists hope to develop a reliable method that diagnoses HEV infections highly sensitively and at the same time identifies viral variants through an interdisciplinary approach that combines specialist knowledge from medicine, virology and computer science. In order to record the enormous amounts of data from the various locations in a structured manner and to use them for in-depth analysis, the biomedical research portal CentraXX of KAIROS GmbH will be used as part of the study management.

Widespread, rarely recognized

In pregnant women or people with weakened immune systems, the infection with HEV can be chronic and at worst fatal. "This makes hepatitis E a serious problem for organ transplant people whose immune systems have to be suppressed with medication so that the foreign organ is not rejected," explains Eike Steinmann.

In the project, the partners want to develop a so-called depth sequencing process, which not only detects HEV in a highly sensitive manner, but also recognizes different variants of the virus in parallel. This should make it possible to treat the infection better. "We currently only have the active ingredient ribavirin available for the treatment," says Steinmann. “But the decision about the administration and dosage is difficult. Here we want to develop a so-called decision support tool that enables a personalized treatment approach and thus supports the therapy decisions of the treating doctors.

Source/Credit: Ruhr University Bochum

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Thursday, August 18, 2022

UBC researchers discover ‘weak spot’ across major COVID-19 variants

Cryo-electron microscopy reveals how the VH Ab6 antibody fragment (red) attaches to the vulnerable site on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (grey) to block the virus from binding with the human ACE2 cell receptor (blue).
Credit: Dr. Sriram Subramaniam, UBC

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have discovered a key vulnerability across all major variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, including the recently emerged BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron subvariants.

The weakness can be targeted by neutralizing antibodies, potentially paving the way for treatments that would be universally effective across variants.

The findings, published today in Nature Communications, use cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to reveal the atomic-level structure of the vulnerable spot on the virus’ spike protein, known as an epitope. The paper further describes an antibody fragment called VH Ab6 that is able to attach to this site and neutralize each major variant.

“This is a highly adaptable virus that has evolved to evade most existing antibody treatments, as well as much of the immunity conferred by vaccines and natural infection,” says Dr. Sriram Subramaniam (he/him), a professor at UBC’s faculty of medicine and the study’s senior author. “This study reveals a weak spot that is largely unchanged across variants and can be neutralized by an antibody fragment. It sets the stage for the design of pan-variant treatments that could potentially help a lot of vulnerable people.”

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

First Structure of Key COVID Enzyme at Human Body Temperature

Scientists used x-rays to decipher the three-dimensional structure of the main protease of the virus that causes COVID-19 at different temperatures. The background image shows the full structure at 240 Kelvin (-28°F, cyan stick figure) and 100 K (-280°F, dark blue). The red and green blobs represent differences in the structure at these distinct temperatures. The study allowed the scientists to zero in on subtle shifts that occur in the structure as the temperature changes (inset), potentially pointing to areas of the enzyme that could be targeted with inhibitor drugs to impair its function.
 Source/Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

Daniel Keedy, City University of New York
Scientists studying a COVID-19 coronavirus enzyme at temperatures ranging from frosty to human-body warm discovered subtle structural shifts that offer clues about how the enzyme works. The findings, published in IUCrJ, the journal of the International Union of Crystallography, may inspire the design of new drugs to counteract COVID-19—and possibly help head off future coronavirus pandemics.

“No previous study has looked at this important coronavirus enzyme at physiological (or body) temperature,” said Daniel Keedy, a structural biologist at the City University of New York (CUNY), who conducted the study in collaboration with scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Most structures to date come from frozen samples—far from the temperatures at which the molecules operate within living cells. “If you are working at physiological temperature, you should get a more realistic picture of what’s happening during an actual infection, because that’s where biology happens,” Keedy said.

In addition, he added, the team used temperature as a tool. “By turning that knob and seeing how the protein reacts, we can learn about its mechanics—how it physically works."

How hepatitis E outwits the immune system

Daniel Todt, Eike Steinmann and Toni Meister (from left) look at the image of a cell infected with the hepatitis E virus. The capsid protein can be seen in green, the cell nucleus in blue.
Credit: Department of Molecular and Medical Virology

Faulty virus particles could be a deception to distract the immune system from fighting infectious viruses.

Over three million people become infected with the hepatitis E virus every year. So far there is no specifically effective drug. An international research team has examined which factors are important for the virus in the course of its reproductive cycle and how it manages to maintain the infection. The researchers analyzed various mutations in the virus and found changes that may allow the virus to outsmart the immune system. The team from the Molecular and Medical Virology Department of the Ruhr University Bochum around Dr. Toni Meister, Dr. Daniel Todt and Prof. Dr. Eike Steinmann reports in the journal PNAS.

Advantages and disadvantages of mutations

An important defense mechanism against viral infections in our body are special proteins, the antibodies. These usually bind specifically to surface proteins of the virus in order to make it harmless. But viruses have developed strategies to avoid this identification. During infection with the hepatitis E virus, random mutations often result in virus variants that can coexist within an infected person. The antiviral agent ribavirin, which many chronically infected people receive, can even increase the formation of such viral variants.

Monday, August 15, 2022

Road signs for immune defense cells

The mechanism of MHC I assembly, epitope editing and quality control within the peptide loading complex (PLC). The fully assembled PLC machinery of antigen processing is formed by the antigen transport complex TAP1/2, the chaperones calreticulin, ERp57, and tapasin, and the heterodimeric MHC I (heavy and light chain in teal and green, respectively).
Credit: Christoph Thomas & Robert Tampé

How do killer T cells recognize cells in the body that have been infected by viruses? Matter foreign to the body is presented on the surface of these cells as antigens that act as a kind of road sign. A network of accessory proteins – the chaperones – ensure that this sign retains its stability over time. Researchers at Goethe University have now reached a comprehensive understanding of this essential cellular quality control process. Their account of the structural and mechanistic basis of chaperone networks has just appeared in the prestigious science journal Nature Communications. These new findings could be harbingers of progress in areas such as vaccine development.

Organisms are constantly invaded by pathogens such as viruses. Our immune system swings into action to combat these pathogens immediately. The innate non-specific immune response is triggered first, and the adaptive or acquired immune response follows. In this second defense reaction, specialized cytotoxic T lymphocytes known as killer T cells destroy cells in the body that have been infected and thus prevent damage from spreading. Humans possess a repertoire of some 20 million T cell clones with varying specificity to counter the multitude of infectious agents that exist. But how do the killer T cells know where danger is coming from? How do they recognize that something is wrong inside a cell in which viruses are lurking? They can't just have a quick peek inside.

Thursday, August 11, 2022

World first chronic fatigue syndrome findings could fast track response to Long COVID

Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik from the National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED) at Griffith University.
Credit: Griffith University

Griffith University researchers are hoping to find a treatment for Long COVID after proving the illness shares the same biological impairment as patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (known internationally as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS)).

In a world first, their study suggests COVID-19 could be a potential trigger for ME/CFS and their 10 years of research on ME/CFS could help fast track understanding and treatment of Long Covid.

Griffith University’s National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases Director, Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik, said the breakthrough findings will assist with investigations into therapeutic strategies to help both Long COVID and ME/CFS patients.

“Patients with Long COVID report neurocognitive, immunological, gastrointestinal, and cardiovascular manifestations, which are also symptoms of ME/CFS,” Professor Marshall-Gradisnik said.

“Our researchers have pioneered a specialized technique known as electrophysiology or ‘patch-clamp’ in immune cells.”

“This technique previously led the team to report on the pathology of ME/CFS and to examine specific ion channels in cells.

Monday, August 8, 2022

New inhaled COVID-19 therapeutic blocks viral replication in the lungs

UC Berkeley postdoctoral scholar Chi Zhu is part of a team of researchers who are developing a new COVID-19 therapeutic that can be administered as a nasal spray. The experimental treatment is effective against all SARS-CoV-2 “variants of concern” and could be readily modified to target other RNA viruses.
UC Berkeley photo by Brittany Hosea-Small

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have created a new COVID-19 therapeutic that could one day make treating SARS-CoV-2 infections as easy as using a nasal spray for allergies.

The therapeutic uses short snippets of synthetic DNA to gum up the genetic machinery that allows SARS-CoV-2 to replicate within the body.

In a new study published online in the journal Nature Communications, the team shows that these short snippets, called antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs), are highly effective at preventing the virus from replicating in human cells. When administered in the nose, these ASOs are also effective at preventing and treating COVID-19 infection in mice and hamsters.

“Vaccines are making a huge difference, but vaccines are not universal, and there is still a tremendous need for other approaches,” said Anders Näär, a professor of metabolic biology in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology (NST) at UC Berkeley and senior author of the paper. “A nasal spray that is cheaply available everywhere and that could prevent someone from getting infected or prevent serious disease could be immensely helpful.”

Because the ASO treatment targets a portion of the viral genome that is highly conserved among different variants, it is effective against all SARS-CoV-2 “variants of concern” in human cells and in animal models. It is also chemically stable and relatively inexpensive to produce at large scale, making it ideal for treating COVID-19 infections in areas of the world that do not have access to electricity or refrigeration.

Monday, August 1, 2022

Triazavirin to Be Tested for Effectiveness Against Tick-Borne Encephalitis

Triazavirin was developed by scientists of the Ural Federal University and the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Credit: UrFU Press Service

The scientific community has provided research recommendations

The Medsintez plant, the manufacturer of the antiviral drug Triazavirin, plans to conduct studies of the drug for effectiveness against tick-borne encephalitis. Aleksandr Petrov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Medsintez Plant LLC, notes that the company has already received recommendations from the scientific community. This was reported by TASS.

"The effectiveness of Triazavirin against tick-borne encephalitis is a very interesting topic to study. Scientists are already saying that the drug can be effective against this virus. Currently we are guided by the opinion of scientists, that is why we are considering the possibility of conducting such studies," said Petrov.

He stressed that this year in some regions there is a high activity of ticks and increased detection of cases of encephalitis, that is why Triazavirin research in this area is relevant.

Reference:
Medsintez plant is located in Novouralsk (Sverdlovsk region). It specializes in the production of pharmaceutical products. The plant produces infusion solutions, ready forms of genetically engineered human insulin, solid and liquid forms of drugs. The plant manufactures licensed products and is engaged in the creation of new drugs.

Source/Credit: Ural Federal University

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