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Researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have found a way to stop Ebola from infecting cells. It is the first step towards a treatment against the as-of-yet-invincible virus, a disease that has long been feared for its killing rate and possible use as an agent of bioterrorism.
Ebola is one of the deadliest viruses in the world. The mortality rate is nearly 90%, and there is still the troubling fact that scientists do not know where it comes from. While most diseases have a defined initial host (such animals or water), there has been no sign of Ebola’s first home. Without that information, stopping outbreaks is virtually impossible.
That is why developing a vaccine or at least an effective treatment is so important. Researchers have been racing for decades to attempt to halt the tricking virus, but until now there has been limited success. However, a recent study published in Drug Discovery Research holds new promise. Though the experiment was only conducted in cell culture, it is the first time the virus has been stopped from infecting cells.
Researchers took a unique approach, focusing more on the cell than the virus itself. "The premise for this work is that the virus is essentially nothing without a cell," said Dr. Robert Davey. "It needs to rely on many cell proteins and factors for it to replicate. The idea is that if we can suppress the expression of those cell proteins for just a short time, we can then stop the disease in its tracks." [EurekAlert]
Though they used mock form of Ebola (so that it is safe to use in the lab), it acts in the same manner as the actual virus. The experiment was a large-scale gene screen. By using a small interfering RNA (siRNA) technique to block over 700 genes one at a time or in combination, scientists investigated under which situations the virus was able to infect the cell.
Once the screening was done, the researchers then had to make sense of the multitudes of data collected. Using a new computer system that searches for statistical significance in an siRNA experiment, they found two unique pathways that seemed to allowed the virus to infect the cell: the PI3 kinase pathway and the CAMK2 pathway. Luckily, there were already drugs available that blocked the pathways, so the team investigated their efficiency with both the mock virus and a true Ebola strain.
"With the real virus, we found that the PI3 kinase inhibitor dropped virus titers by 65 percent, and if we used drugs which block CAMK2 function, it was just killed — stopped dead," Davey said. "This is really, very, very interesting because this pathway has a lot of potential for future pharmaceutical exploitation." [EurekAlert]
At the moment, Ebola is contained within Africa. However, it has long been viewed as a bioterrorism threat because of the efficiency with which it kills its victims. Finding a cure or vaccine will not only help those afflicted in Africa, but also protect the rest of the world from Ebola’s spread.
More science news: New source of stem cells * Popular Alzheimer’s theory may be wrong * Wii-hab boosts Parkinson's treatments * More
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