Kicgas virus protein helps fight autoimmune diseases

Recently, researchers at Florida State University (FSU) took a big step in the fight against cancer Their research results may open the door for new research and treatment options Published in the latest cell host and microbe, Fanxu, Professor of cancer research, FSU Zhu and his team found that a viral protein in cells can inhibit the main DNA sensor, thus inhibiting the body's response to virus infection, which shows that we can help people fight against infection, cancer or autoimmune diseases by manipulating this cell pathway They named the protein kicgas Professor fanxi Zhu graduated from Wuhan University in 1995 with a doctor's degree He mainly focused on the coating between the capsid and the envelope of KSHV virus particles, focusing on the interaction between the coating protein and the host cell, as well as the structural composition and morphogenesis of the coating protein In recent years, dozens of papers have been published in international famous academic journals, and representative papers have been published in PNAS, J Virol, J Immunol and other magazines "We can manipulate this protein and / or sensor to enhance or modulate the immune response against infections and autoimmune diseases as well as cancer," Zhu said Professor Zhu leads a research team to study how DNA viruses cause cancer, which is a hot topic for researchers around the world About 15% of human cancer cases are caused by viruses, so scientists have been looking for answers about "how the body responds to viral infection and how some viruses maintain lifelong infection" In the past few years, researchers have finally identified the main DNA sensor in a cell, called CGAs This prompted researchers to further test the sensor in the context of human diseases, because ideally, the sensor should always remind the body to fight against diseases caused by DNA viruses In essence, DNA virus is an intracellular parasite with genetic material Several well-known diseases, including smallpox, varicella and herpes, are caused by DNA viruses One of the reasons these diseases are so hard to cure is that they replace the cellular machinery of their human hosts, often making it impossible for us to kill viruses Although people are equipped with complex immune system to deal with virus infection, many viruses have evolved some mechanism to evade or inhibit the immune response of human body Therefore, the discovery of this protein is crucial to further explore how these DNA viruses work and how to defeat them To find the protein, Zhu's team studied Kaposi's sarcoma associated herpesvirus (KSHV), a human herpesvirus that causes some forms of lymphoma and Kaposi's sarcoma, usually in people with low immunity, such as AIDS In this study, the researchers screened each protein (90 in total) in a KSHV cell, and finally found that one of them could directly inhibit the DNA sensor called CGAs They used Kaposi's sarcoma virus to infect human cell lines to mimic natural infection and found that when they eliminated the inhibitor protein kicgas, the cells had a stronger immune response In order to carry out this work, Professor Zhu cooperates with some scientists in the United States and Germany, including Hong Li, Professor of chemistry and biochemistry of FSU Professor Li's research focuses on molecular biology and molecular biophysics, focusing on how proteins inhibit the activity of CGAs in vitro For the next phase of the study, she is building a three-dimensional model of the interaction to help them better understand how inhibitors work Professor Li said: "these are very difficult problems to solve, and we still need to carry out more research." The next step is to understand how inhibitors work "Once we've figured it out, we can design strategies to fight the disease," Zhu said