According to scientist Pavel Volchkov, artificial viruses are essential for creating cancer drugs, vaccines, and gene therapy.
The scientist points out that scientists are creating artificial viruses, in order to develop genetic treatments and cancer diseases, because natural viruses cannot be used in these medicines. Because it will be attacked by the body's immune system.
“This allows gene therapy to be used on 100 percent of potential patients,” he says. “It is useful for delivering materials for any vaccine - for example, synthetic forms of the Sputnik V vaccine can be made from the same vaccine to fight cancer. They are called oncolytic viruses, which actively reproduce in cancer cells, sending a signal "To the immune system, which destroys it. That is, these artificial viruses are used here as bait."
An example of the immune system attacking the body itself is the death of two children after taking the drug Zolgensma. Doctors prescribed this drug to the two children along with medications that suppress the immune system, which were gradually removed. After that, the immune system began to recognize and attack the viruses, destroying the liver in the two children.
He explains: “The Zolgensma drug is manufactured on the basis of adeno-associated virus serotype 9 (AAV9). What are the disadvantages of these viruses? The disadvantages lie in that the surface proteins of these viruses are made on the basis of the wild type, that is, those found in nature and encountered in our daily lives.” "The body produces antibodies to them. Since our 'weapon' is directed at these viruses, the adaptive immune system will work to neutralize the injection of such a drug for gene therapy."
According to him, this problem can be overcome by creating viruses that do not exist in nature and that the immune system has not encountered previously.
"An important scientific achievement" that may open the way to treat male infertility!
Scientists have decoded a protein from sea urchin sperm, which is also found in humans, opening up a new potential path to treating male infertility.
A 2018 study revealed that the protein, called SLC9C1, has a strange mix-and-match structure.
The protein is located in the sperm cell membrane and helps transport positively charged sodium and hydrogen ions into and out of the cell. This has an important role in regulating the cell's pH, salt content and size, which helps keep it alive and healthy for sperm to swim quickly.
“We know that this protein is essential for sperm motility and therefore male fertility, from studies on sea urchins to mice and humans,” said Christina Paulino, a structural biologist at the Center for Biochemistry at Heidelberg University in Germany.
However, the protein works differently in different animals, as previous research has shown.
Paulino conducted most of the new research while at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, focusing on the protein found in sea urchins.
“It combines 'instrumental skills' that we've never seen before,” Paulino said. The protein consists of a piece that senses voltage across the cell membrane, a piece that responds to small molecular messages called cyclic AMP, and a component that does the actual ion exchange. Paulino said the structure is somewhat similar to Lego.
Paulino and her team used a technique called cryo-electron microscopy to study the protein, where samples are cooled to below -153 degrees Celsius, and a beam of electrons is passed through them to create high-resolution images of the protein's complex twists and turns.
The team found that the protein in sea urchins makes the interior of sperm cells more alkaline, meaning they are more basic or less acidic, by exchanging sodium ions and protons inside and outside the cell. Changes in cell membrane potential cause this transport.
“This is remarkable, as the transporter has adopted or hijacked another building block that is usually only found in another class of membrane transporters, namely ion channels,” Paulino said.
She explained that researchers are interested in the potential role of SLC9C1 in male infertility.
However, there is a big leap between understanding the basic function of SLC9C1 in sea urchins, and using that information to develop the elusive goal of pharmaceutical birth control for men, said Benjamin Kaub, a biochemist at the University of Bonn and the Max Planck Institute for Interdisciplinary Science, who did not, He participates in the new study.
Recent work published by Kaup and his team in Nature Communications found that - unlike axolotl cells - human SLC9C1 is not triggered by cell membrane potential. It is not clear what controls the human version of the protein, or even whether the human version transports sodium ions and protons, as the sea urchin protein does.
The study was published in the journal Nature.