Nature: scientists are expected to develop new therapies against pneumonia inducing viruses such as respiratory syncytial virus

December 12, 2019 / biourn / -- recently, in a research report published in the international journal Nature, scientists from Nanyang University of technology and other institutions found a new method to inactivate respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and human metapneumovirus (hMPV) after clarifying the key component structure of human metapneumovirus (hMPV) Photo source: RSV and hMPV are two closely related viruses, which can cause serious and life-threatening respiratory diseases, such as pneumonia and bronchiolitis High risk groups include premature infants, infants, the elderly and people with weak immune system function According to UNICEF data, in 2018 alone, pneumonia will cause one child to die every 39 seconds around the world, but there is no effective vaccine or antiviral therapy to protect against the virus When infected with human cells, RSV and hMPV will use the host cell machine to copy from me In order to start this process, the virus will release special proteins to interact with each other to produce a completely different protein complex; researcher Julien In this study, we used low-temperature electron microscopy to image the molecular structure of a large protein complex of hMPV, an enzyme called hMPV L: P polymerases, lescar said Cryoelectron microscopy can use advanced electronic scanning imaging technology, which can image cryopreserved samples on the scale of sub nanometer, so that researchers can use this technology to capture the image of hMPV L: P polymerase at a resolution of 3.7 angstroms (0.37 nm) Based on these two-dimensional images, researchers can then build hMPV 50: Three dimensional computer model of p-polymerase The analysis of the structure of these models can reveal the key sites of the interaction between the molecules, which can provide new targets to help develop antiviral molecules against the above two virus infections Now researchers have developed special inhibitors, which can interfere with the activity of hMPV L: P polymerase protein and potentially block the infection of the virus Lescar said, we hope that this study can help scientists design more new therapies to resist the infection of refractory virus Because the hMPV protein studied by the researchers has not changed in essence through evolution, and it is very similar to the virus in RSV and other families, the researchers hope that the inhibitor solution developed in this paper can resist the infection of hMPV To resist the infection of broad-spectrum virus, these viruses often participate in the occurrence of respiratory diseases Now researchers are working with a pharmaceutical company to design DNA replication blockers, hoping to use them as potential therapies against the virus Original source: Pan, J., Qian, X., Lattmann, S et al Structure of the human metapneumovirus polymer photoshoprotein complex Nature (2019) doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1759-1