Ebola,
a deadly virus from the virus family Filoviridae and the genus of Ebolavirus,
has claimed over 380 victims in Africa this year and thousands more since its
last major outbreak in 2013. A team of scientists from the Texas Biomedical Research
institute, Gladstone Institutes, UC San Francisco, and Georgia State University
recently published a piece in the journal Cell where they share their discovery
of the interaction between an Ebola protein and a protein in human cells.
The
team believes that this discovery may be crucial to understanding the pathway
of replication of the virus in human hosts. Dozens of scientists have been
working towards finding a universal vaccine or drug that can stop the Ebola virus.
While some scientists have taken steps testing new cocktails and potential
vaccines, Biomed Staff Scientist Olena Shtanko, Ph.D. and her team have reached
what she calls a “turning point” to understanding how the replication of the
virus is modulated.
More
specifically, Shtanko’s research used a protein interaction map along with a
replicating virus and human immune cells in a biosafety Level 4 laboratory to
figure out the nature of the protein interaction. This setup also utilized a
yeast system and an artificial proxy virus system to show that VP 30 (An Ebola
virus protein) and RBBP6 (A host human protein) have involvement in the life
cycle of the virus. Shtanko believes that “if you can figure out the mechanism within
cells, then you can manipulate it and stop disease progression”.
Two
scientists who had prior experience working with macrophages used their skills
to over and under express the RBBP6 host protein and create an effective model
for their analysis. This under and over expression helped the scientists gauge
the impact the protein had on the growth of the virus in macrophages. The
result is that when the protein was under
expressed, viral replication went up significantly. These results were also
supported by vascular cells, which also play a role in Ebola virus replication.
More can be Read at:
https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/viral/another-piece-ebola-virus-puzzle-identified, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ebola-virus-disease
- Julio Contreras
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