Another Piece of the Puzzle: Scientists Are Closer to Understanding Ebola

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

New York's Most Severe Outbreak of Measles in Decades

New York is currently facing its most severe outbreak of measles in decades. The disease disproportionately affects the ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities of New York, where infected people from Israel and Europe had entered throughout last fall. Interestingly, the insular nature of ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods enables the virus to spread within them, while also protecting people outside the communities, as infected individuals largely remain within the same areas of schools, shops, and restaurants. As 182 cases have been confirmed by last Thursday (1/17), alarmed health officials are attempting to systematically increase vaccination rates.

However, health officials have been facing challenges in halting the outbreak partially due to a common resistance to vaccinations by ultra-Orthodox people. In fact, some religious schools in these neighborhoods have had vaccination rates as low as 60%. This phenomenon may be connected to the broader anti-vaccination movement, which falsely claims that vaccines cause autism and other illnesses. It may also be shaped by cultural factors in the communities, as sociology professor Samuel Heilman maintains that there is a "fear of interference from the outside" stemming from the population's history in pre-World War II Europe.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/nyregion/measles-outbreak-jews-nyc.html


-- Caroline Aung

UCLA Researchers Develop AI that can Detect Viruses

Biosensing applications typically rely upon the characterization of specific analytes of target viruses, bacteria and proteins. Due to the chemical nature of biosensing and the necesisty of micro- or nano-scale particles, machines capable of running this tests are typically expensive and bulky, limiting their useful to address biosensing needs in low resource environments.

Recently, researchers from UCLA developed a faster and automated biosensing method that relies upon artificial intelligence. The method involves imaging the particle clusters as holograms and then reconstructing them into holograms to match them with known viruses. The researchers used this approach to detect herpes simplex virus, resulting in a detection limit of 5 viruses per microliter. 

For more information, see: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-artificial-intelligence-presence-viruses.html

-Ed

Neanderthal Genes Help Humans Evade Viruses

A NYT article describes how humans have kept genes originating from Neanderthals that allow the body to "run away" from viruses. When the ancestor of the modern human left Africa, they were exposed to the Neanderthals, who had left the continent millenia ago. While Neanderthals passed along pathogens to the unprotected humans, they also provided ancient humanity with genetic resistances through interbreeding. Some of these genes help humans fight influenza and H.I.V by altering the shape of key proteins. These genetic resistances remain to this day.

Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/science/neanderthal-genes-viruses.html

-Ed