( As public health officials in China bra...)New SARS Protein Linked To Important Cell Doorway

As public health officials in China brace for a potential resurgence in SARS (Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome) in connection with Chinese New Year on February 9, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have published insights into a new protein that could be an important contributor to the SARS virus' ability to cause disease and death.

When the SARS virus first jumped from its still unknown animal reservoir to humans in late 2002, it caused approximately 800 deaths and 8,000 infections in several Asian countries. Months before SARS became available for direct study, Washington University researchers used the SARS genome, finished a mere half-year after the first human infections, to look for potentially important viral proteins.

As reported recently in the journal Structure, their efforts revealed orf7a, a SARS protein that makes its home in a structure cells use to modify proteins destined for transport to the cell surface. Researchers don't have any hard evidence of orf7a's function, but they speculate that the protein's positioning could enable it to block proteins that help alert the immune system or to assist reproduced viral proteins as they make their way out of the cell.

The finding exemplifies a primary directive of the University's BioMed 21 Initiative: harness the power of genetic information to rapidly advance possibilities for patient treatment. If further investigation shows orf7a is important to the SARS virus' ability to cause disease, scientists will already have much of the knowledge they need to develop ways to disable or weaken it.

"The key to studying novel viruses used to be the ability to isolate the virus and grow it in a culture," notes lead author Daved Fremont, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of pathology and immunology. "Now we can take these viral genetic sequences, which can be attained very rapidly, and get a head start on detailed biophysical investiga
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Source:Washington University School Of Medicine

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