Is the movie ‘Contagion War’ a reality? This virus also has weaknesses.
Measles and Nipah virus discovered therapeutic targets in matrix protein
La Jolla Institute of Immunology, USA, a paper in the journal ‘Science Advance’
(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Ki-cheon Han = Paramyxoviruses are dangerous pathogens that can bring regarding a pandemic at any time.
Nipah virus and viruses that cause measles, mumps, Newcastle disease, and canine measles belong to the paramyxo family.
The ability of the measles virus to spread is unmatched by any other virus.
When a person with measles coughs, regarding 90 out of 100 unvaccinated people in the same room become infected.
Nipah virus is not as contagious as the measles virus.
However, the fatality rate is high enough that 40% to 90% of infected people die.
What if a paramyxovirus emerged, as contagious as measles and as deadly as Nipa?
Human imagination has already shown what kind of devastation will happen in the movie ‘Contagion’.
This film, released in 2011, was produced as a scenario in which a paramyxovirus with such destructive power spreads.
If such a pandemic becomes a reality, scientists agree that a really powerful paramyxovirus treatment will be needed.
Fortunately, the results of virology studies that can be the basis for the development of such a treatment have emerged.
By observing key stages of the ‘life cycle’ of the measles virus and the Nipah virus, the fatal weakness of the virus was discovered.
The study was led by scientists at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology (LJI) in the United States.
The related paper was published in the journal ‘Science Advances’ on the 20th (local time). The paper will be edited as the cover story of the next issue of this journal.
The key achievement of this research is to unravel the long-standing mystery of virology: the mechanism by which virus particles are created.
It was already known that a large number of viral particles encased in a capsid collect on the cell membrane.
But he didn’t know what was the trigger that triggered that process.
The LJI research team found out how the paramyxovirus uses host cell lipids when it spreads.
Various imaging technologies such as den X-ray crystallography and advanced electron microscopy were used to capture the process of ‘viral assembly’.
During virus assembly, the virus’ core proteins and genetic material continued to flood the cell membrane of the infected host.
However, it was the virus’ ‘matrix protein’ that played a key role.
This protein pulled together the proteins needed to create a new virus particle, allowing the virus to take shape.
The team nicknamed the matrix protein ‘field marshal’.
The matrix protein formed a lattice shape on the inner surface of the cell membrane and pushed the cell membrane outward.
In this way, when the cell membrane protruded in the form of a ‘bud’, various viral proteins were attracted to this point.
The shoot, complete with the necessary elements, fell from the ‘parent cell’ and became a new virus particle that infects other host cells.
The weakness of the measles virus and nipa virus was also in the process of ‘virus assembly’.
Two matrix proteins hugged each other to form a ‘two-sided dimer’ structure. Blocking this process halted ‘viral assembly’, i.e., proliferation.
Specifically, matrix proteins anchored by binding to specific lipid molecules in the host cell membrane, which determined the point at which virus assembly took place.
In particular, the substrate protein of Nipah virus changed its structure and opened a pocket for binding with the lipid of the host cell.
This pocket structure did not exist before binding to the cell membrane.
The team believes that this pocket will be a target for developing inhibitors of ‘viral assembly’.
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