Scientists Uncover Deadly Ebola Virus’s “Achilles’ Heel”:
The so-called Ebola virus glycoprotein, or “spike protein,” was first discovered a decade ago and has been a target for scientists attempting to design vaccines and therapies to prevent it from infecting cells. But, until now, researchers did not understand the protein’s structure — and thus, the best way to attack it.The so-called Ebola virus glycoprotein, or “spike protein,” was first discovered a decade ago and has been a target for scientists attempting to design vaccines and therapies to prevent it from infecting cells. But, until now, researchers did not understand the protein’s structure — and thus, the best way to attack it.
Researchers discovered that the compound is wrapped in benign carbohydrates that mask the virus’s deadliness, allowing it to elude immune system scouts. (The human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, that causes AIDS also has this trait.) The good news: the discovery could pave the way for drugs designed to see through that protective coating — and trigger the immune system to attack.
“The structure of the glycoprotein shows us the very few sites on its surface that are not cloaked by carbohydrate,” Ollmann Saphire explains. “These [sites] are the chink in the armor, or the Achilles’ heel, that we can target antibodies against.”
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Researchers made their latest finding by studying the bone marrow of a lucky survivor of a 1995 Ebola outbreak in Kikwit, a city in the southwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They found the glycoprotein attached to an antibody (a protein unleashed by the immune system to fight viruses) in the marrow, the soft core of bones where red blood cells are manufactured.According to Ollmann Saphire, there is a receptor located deep in the bowl-shaped structure of Ebola’s glycoprotein that latches onto the surface of host cells and tricks a protein there into granting the virus entry. Once inside the cells, the fast-acting Ebola co-opts their machinery to make millions of copies of itself and floods the person’s bloodstream.