https://www.kobe-u.ac.jp/en/news/article/20241022-66157/
"The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has an enzyme that can counteract a cell’s
innate defense mechanism against viruses, explaining why it is more infectious
than the previous SARS and MERS-causing viruses. The Kobe University discovery
may point the way to the development of more effective drugs against this and
possibly similar, future diseases.
When a virus attacks, the body’s immune response has two basic layers of
defense: the innate and the adaptive immune systems. While the adaptive immune
system grows stronger against a specific pathogen as the body is exposed to it
multiple times and which forms the basis of vaccinations, the innate immune
system is an assortment of molecular mechanisms that work against a broad range
of pathogens at a basic level. The Kobe University virologist SHOJI Ikuo says,
“The new coronavirus, however, is so infectious that we wondered what clever
mechanisms the virus employs to evade the innate immune system so effectively.”
Shoji’s team previously worked on the immune response to hepatitis viruses and
investigated the role of a molecular tag called “ISG15” the innate immune
system attaches to the virus’s building blocks. Having learned that the novel
coronavirus has an enzyme that is especially effective in removing this tag, he
decided to use his team’s expertise to elucidate the effect of the ISG15 tag on
the coronavirus and the mechanism of the virus’s countermeasures.
In a paper in the
Journal of Virology, the Kobe University-led team is now
the first to report that the ISG15 tag gets attached to a specific location on
the virus’s nucleocapsid protein, the scaffold that packages the pathogen’s
genetic material. For the virus to assemble, many copies of the nucleocapsid
protein need to attach to each other, but the ISG15 tag prevents this, which is
the mechanism behind the tag’s antiviral action. “However, the novel
coronavirus also has an enzyme that can remove the tags from its nucleocapsid,
recovering its ability to assemble new viruses and thus overcoming the innate
immune response,” explains Shoji."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: October 24, 2024
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-114604843
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
