MELBOURNE, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Scientists in Australia have discovered strategies used by viruses to control human cells so effectively despite having minimal genetic material, a finding that could lead to new antivirals and vaccines.
The study revealed how rabies virus manipulates so many cellular processes despite being armed with only a few proteins, according to a statement released Thursday by Australia's Monash University, which co-led the research with several leading Australian research institutes.
The researchers believed other dangerous viruses like Nipah and Ebola may also work the same way, possibly enabling the development of antivirals or vaccines to block these adaptive tactics, according to the study published in Nature Communications.
Viruses have the ability to "do so much with so little" when they infect and "take over" our cells. Rabies virus, for example, has the genetic material to make only five proteins, compared with about 20,000 in a human cell, said the study's co-senior author Greg Moseley, head of the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute's Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory.
"Viruses such as rabies can be incredibly lethal because they take control of many aspects of life inside the cells they infect," Moseley said.
"They hijack the machinery that makes proteins, disrupt the 'postal service' that sends messages between different parts of the cell, and disable the defenses that normally protect us from infection," he added.
The study found that the rabies virus uses a single multifunctional protein, known as P, to hijack key cell processes. The protein can change shape and bind to RNA, enabling it to infiltrate liquid-like compartments inside cells that control key processes, such as immune defense and protein production, and turn the cell into a highly efficient virus factory. ■
