As crazy as some research projects may sound on paper, they are actually done for good reason. Like giving us new and better information to fight the coronavirus pandemic…
A new study published in the journal Nature Communications fits just that description: Researchers in Germany and the UK have created a synthetic COVID-19 virus from scratch. developed and discovered an incredibly important piece of information about how the virus escapes our body’s immune systems.
In a statement from the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, where the research was conducted, “Researchers using this technique to study spike protein have discovered a mechanism of change. Upon binding of inflamed fatty acids, the spike protein changes its conformation so that it is less beneficial for the host’s immune system. becomes ‘visible’.
Studying COVID-19 in the lab comes with several challenges, including the potential for researchers to become infected themselves. It can also be difficult to study individual mechanisms of the native virus, rather than the entire infection as a whole, as the team behind the new study aims to do.
Instead, the team created synthetic SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (or virions) using a method called “bottom-up synthetic biology.” Although these had a similar structure to real SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, they did not contain genetic information, meaning there was no danger of infection for the researchers.
Lead Author Oskar Staufer said, “What was even more important to us when creating these synthetic virions from scratch was that we were able to precisely engineer their composition and structure,” added: “This allowed us to do a very systematic, step-by-step study of the different mechanisms. ”
The team had shown in a previous study that the COVID-19 spike protein contains an area on the spike that is particularly sensitive to a particular type of immune molecule, called the fatty acid-binding pocket. However, the cause was unknown. The question of why, more than two years later, he still had this vulnerability remained unanswered, since the SARS-CoV-2 virus is notorious for developing immune responses.
Thanks to virions, we now know the answer. It seems that SARS-CoV-2 particles may be using our body’s immune response to their advantage: Researchers have discovered that when a fatty acid immune molecule attaches to this pocket, the spike protein “folds up.”
Not only does this mean it can no longer infect host cells, it also means that host antibodies are less able to bind to it. You can think of it like folding down a switchblade. While you can no longer use this knife to stab something, it is also difficult to recognize that you have a knife.
“By ‘folding’ the spike protein upon binding of inflammatory fatty acids, the virus becomes less visible to the immune system,” said Staufer. It may be a mechanism to inhibit the immune response and increase overall infection efficiency.”
While the discovery was surprising, it marks only the beginning of what the team thought was possible with synthetic COVID-19 virus technology. The next step will be to find out exactly why the virus uses this “covering” mechanism and whether we can use it for future treatments or vaccines.
“It’s really exciting to apply such synthetic biology concepts to a problem with global impact”…
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