A new discovery helps making vaccines and treatments that can stop Corona
On February 15th, a research team from the Scripps Research Institute in America has found a weak site in the main viral protein of the Corona virus, the spike protein that gives the virus its famous coronal shape.
The research team revealed in a study recently published in the journal (Science Translation Medicine) that targeting this site can help in the fabricating of broad-spectrum vaccines and antibody therapies capable of stopping future epidemics of the Corona virus.
The research team said that they have determined the atomic range of the site to which the antibody binds on the protein ( Spike) of MERS-CoV and showed that the same range is present in other known MERS-CoVs and demonstrated using animal models that the antibody protects against MERS viruses.
The research team used X-ray crystallography and other techniques to accurately map the antibody binding site on the Spike protein, and they showed that the same site is present in most other beta coronaviruses, which helps explain the broad effect of the antibody on these viruses.
“We hope that identifying this atomic range will help us develop vaccines and antibody therapies that work against all beta coronaviruses, including coronaviruses that may be transmitted from animals to humans in the future,” Rice Andrabe of the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the Scripps Research Institute said.
O. al-Mohammad