For this, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a hybrid virus that will allow more scientists to fight the pandemic. Researchers genetically changed a benign virus by exchanging one of their genes with SARS-CoV-2, the guilty virus of COVID-19. The resulting hybrid virus infects cells and is identified through antibodies such as SARS-CoV-2, but can be treated under normal laboratory protection conditions.
The exam will be conducted online at Cell Host – Microbe.
“I have never won so many requests for clinical curtains in such a short time,” said lead co-writer Sean Whelan, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus Marvin A. Brennecke and Head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology. we have distributed the virus to researchers in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and, of course, the United States. We have programmes pending from the UK and Germany. We started asking for the curtains.”
To create a sarS-CoV-2 style that is safer to care for, Whelan and his colleagues, adding to co-writer Principal Michael S. Diamond, MD, Ph.D., professor of medicine Herbert S. Gasser and co-writers Brett Case, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in Diamond’s lab, and Paul W. Rothlauf, a graduate student at Whelan’s lab, started with vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). This virus is a workhorse from virology labs because it is quite innocent and easy to care for genetically. Primarily a virus of cattle, horses and pigs, VSV infects people and causes a mild influenza disease that lasts 3 to 5 days.
Viruses have proteins on their surfaces that they use to bond and infect cells. Researchers removed the protein gene from the VSV surface and replaced it with the SARS-CoV-2 gene, known as pic. The transfer has created a new virus that targets cells like SARS-CoV-2, but does not have the other genes needed to cause serious illness. They called the hybrid virus VSV-SARS-CoV-2.
Using COVID-19 survivor serum and purified antibodies, the researchers showed that the hybrid virus was identified through antibodies very similar to a genuine SARS-CoV-2 virus from a COVID-19 patient. Antibodies or serums that prevented the hybrid virus from infecting the cells also blocked the genuine SARS-CoV-2 virus; antibodies or serums that could not prevent the hybrid virus also failed to deter genuine SARS-CoV-2. In addition, a lure molecule is also effective at diverting any of the viruses and preventing them from infecting cells.
“Humans expand antibodies as opposed to other SARS-CoV-2 proteins, however, it is the spike antibodies that seem to be the maximum vital for protection,” Whelan said. “Therefore, whenever a virus has the complex protein, it analyzes the human immune formula as SARS-CoV-2, for all effects.”
The hybrid virus may simply compare scientists to a variety of preventive remedies and antibody-based remedies for COVID-19. The virus can only be used to evaluate whether an experimental vaccine triggers neutralizing antibodies, to measure whether a COVID-19 survivor is using enough neutralizing antibodies to deliver plasma to patients with COVID-19, or to identify antibodies that can develop into antiviral drugs.
“One of the disorders related to neutralizing antibody evaluation is that many of these tests require a BSL-3 facility, and peak laboratories and clinical corporations have BSL-3 facilities,” said Diamond, who is also a professor of molecular microbiology. pathology and immunology. “With this substitute virus, you can take serum, plasma or antibodies and conduct high-performance tests at BSL-2 levels, which all labs have, without the threat of an infected infection. And we know that it is perfectly related to the soul knowledge we obtain from SARS-CoV-2 infectious in intelligent faith.”