A Mutant Protein that Makes Viruses Self-Destruct
July 11, 2008| |
Scientists from the University of Arizona (UA) have developed a viral protein that can make viruses self-destruct. The discovery could improve the understanding of how viruses work and ultimately help develop plants and animals resistant to viral attacks.
Virions, or complete virus particles, are composed of nucleic acids surrounded by a protein coat. Working on a bacteriophage, Bentley Fane and his colleagues identified a portion in the protein coat that plays a critical role in virus particle assembly and designed a modified version of that protein. The researchers then engineered bacterial cells to produce the altered protein. During infection, the virus is fooled into incorporating the altered protein. The protein instead gummed up the works of the replication process, causing the virus to die without producing any offspring.
While similar works have been done with plant viruses before, none of those viruses had the icosahedral shape and structure that Fane and colleagues’ research focused on.
Read the complete article at http://www.bio5.org/news/article.php?module=NewsExport&action=ViewArticle&news_id=619&styles=2 The paper published by the Journal of Virology is available to subscribers at http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/82/12/5774
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