Researchers keep achieving breakthroughs in the fight against the corona pandemic.
Scientists in Austria have now evidently succeeded in doing this.
Vienna - Good news in the fight against the Sars-CoV-2 virus: Researchers at the Vienna Institute for Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA) want to have discovered a weak point in the pathogen.
Two sugar-binding proteins can prevent the virus from entering the body.
The scientists published the results of the research in the
EMBO Journal
.
As the IMBA explains, when researching the coronavirus, many scientists start with what is known as the spike protein, because it represents the mechanism by which the virus can get into the host cell.
How infectious the virus is depends on the interaction between this spike protein and the host cell's enzymes, according to the IMBA.
In order for the virus to survive, the spike protein forms a protective shell and thus protects the coronavirus from the host cell's immune response.
Video: The current corona numbers
Research on Corona: weak point of sugar-binding proteins
Because the spike protein creates the protective layer through glucose - i.e. sugar - the Viennese researchers investigated the influence of sugar-binding proteins on the virus.
These proteins are also called lectins.
They have the ability to bind the protective sugar layer of Sars-CoV-2, so the hope of the IMBA researchers.
"We intuitively thought that the lectins could help us to find new interaction partners for the spike protein," says David Hoffmann, a former doctoral student at the Vienna Institute, in a message from the IMBA.
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The coronavirus attaches itself to the body cell with the spike protein (colored red).
© Science Photo Library via www.imago-images.de
Under IMBA group leader Josef Penninger, the research team examined a total of 140 such mammalian lectins.
According to a message from the IMBA, they found two proteins that bind the Sars-CoV-2 spike protein: Clec4g and CD209c.
“We now have tools in hand that bind the protective layer of the virus and thus prevent the virus from penetrating cells,” says Stefan Mereiter from the IMBA, summarizing the research results.
Breakthrough in corona research: what does that mean?
The researchers have also found that the lectins can bind to an important point on the spike protein, as reported by the Vienna Institute. This makes the protein unstable. “This means that our lectins bind to a glycan site that is essential for the function of Spike - it is therefore very unlikely that a mutant could ever develop that lacks this glycan,” explains Stefan Mereiter.
As the scientists found, the sugar-binding proteins also reduce the infectivity of the coronavirus in human lung cells. The IMBA sees promising opportunities for a therapeutic approach in this: Previous research results have tested the influence of a biotechnologically produced protein. But with the breakthrough of the Vienna research group it is clear that there are also naturally occurring proteins that can prevent the virus from entering the cell. The results can now be used for new therapies in the fight against the corona pandemic.
