Scientists discover 'Achilles heel' of viruses
Researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, which is based near Cambridge in the UK, have discovered what they are calling the ‘Achilles heel’ of viruses, ranging from influenza to Ebola, which could potentially point towards a new class of drugs that may become antibiotics for viral infections. Speaking about the results, scientists said that researching the method by which viruses invade human cells – through their outer membrane – has raised the possibility of blocking infections before they even become dangerous. The researchers have isolated a key gene that plays a crucial part in determining whether viruses will be able to penetrate cells, and it is hoped that one day, with enough research, there may be a class of anti-viral treatments that do for viruses what antibiotics have done for many formerly lethal bacterial infections.
“I think that’s what we would like it to be, but in a different way,” said the Sanger Institute’s Paul Kellam. “The way broad-spectrum antibiotics work is that they target a common bacterial pathway within the bacteria so they work across different bacteria. This is turning this approach on its head by saying that since viruses have to get into cells to replicate then the commonality here is not the diversity of viruses, but the human cell that they replicate in – and by understand what blocks this, we get broad-spectrum activity.”
The human gene IFITM3 explains why some people suffer severe effects from certain viruses like flu, while others suffer either mild symptoms or none at all. Speaking at the British Science Festival in Bradford, Kellam said: “The question that is often asked is when there is a viral infection, why do some people get severely ill whilst others have a moderate or mild disease or indeed not disease at all? Is it the pathogen or is it the human that has different responses to the infection?” He cited a study on the 2009 outbreak of swine flu, saying that ‘about 23 per cent of people when exposed to swine flu have no symptoms at all’. “But,” he continued, “0.1 per cent of people, which is about half a million people worldwide or a thousand or so in the UK, have severe symptoms or die, and it’s those individuals we are interested in because it tells us how we fail to respond to a virus.”