Researchers in Israel and California have designed an instrument to analyze molecular interactions occurring in viruses and the cells they infect.
Identifying interactions between proteins caused by viruses such as HIV and hepatitis and the cells they infect may help researchers to find new avenues to disturb these interactions, and develop new medications to treat those infections.
Doron Gerber, a professor at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, says that the PING system (Protein Interaction Network Generator) can help study thousands of interactions simultaneously. It tracks them at a sensitivity of 100- to 1,000-time greater than the current methods. The scientist designed PING in collaboration with scientists at the Stanford University.
An invading virus impacts the machinery of a cell, using host proteins to produce new viral particles. This feature has made viral infections hard to treat, as therapies must not damage the cell while treating the virus.
One method has detected primary interactions between viral and host proteins, to develop new drugs. The HIV drug Fuzeon blocks a viral protein from binding to proteins on the cells’ surface of the immune system, refusing them to enter the cell. Fuzeon is deployed with other drugs. This is because HIV mutates rapidly, becoming resistant to single drugs. So, new drugs need to be continuously developed to keep the treatment alive.
PING helped the team track cellular partners for proteins from hepatitis C and D. It will replicate the system to track inhibitors. New treatments are needed for hepatitis C, which has only one treatment that sometimes does not work. PING uses microfluidics, so collecting enough material has been difficult with existing methods.
Source: http://www1.biu.ac.il/