Taking the fight against the dreaded Nipha disease to a newlevel, researchers at Pune-based Indian Institute of Science Education andResearch (IISER) have developed drug targets for the virus that causes thedisease, using the molecular modeling approach. 

Nipah virus outbreaks have very high mortalityrates. They are over 70 per cent in Southeast Asia.The virus spreads via bodily secretions of bats, pigs and infected individuals.It was first detected in human population in 1998 in Malaysia,It made its way into Indian subcontinent with outbreaks in Bangladesh and India a few years later. 

The Nipah virus is an RNA virus. In other words, its geneticmaterial is RNA surrounded by a protein envelope. Like all viruses, it makescopies of itself and propogates by invading and hijacking the machinery of thehost cell, destroying it in the process. The virus' protein envelope is made ofsix proteins, and its RNA produces three more proteins to defend itself fromthe responses of the host cells. 

The researchers consideredall the nine proteins as potential therapeutic targets. They used the genetic sequence of a strain of the Nipah virusfrom Malaysiaand constructed computer models of the protein structures. They then used themodels to design molecules that could interfere with the molecular mechanismsof the viral proteins to kill or at least disable it. 

They also compared the genetic sequences of 15 strains ofviruses from across Bangladesh,Malaysia and India and foundthat those parts of the proteins that would directly interact with the drugmolecules were not effectively different across the strains. 

 

The researchers have put out various details of their workincluding the structures of the molecules on the website of their Institute foruse by other researchers to take up further studies. 

 

“Our strategy was to tackle the development oftherapeutics on a proteome wide scale and the lead compounds identified couldbe attractive starting points for drug development”, the researchers noted inthe paper they have published on their work in the journal  PLoSNeglected Tropical Diseases. Thestudy was funded by Wellcome Trust-DBT India Alliance, Department of Scienceand Technology (DST) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

The research team consisted of Neeladri Sen, Tejashree RajaramKanitkar, Ankit Animesh Roy, Neelesh Soni, Kaustubh Amritkar, Shreyas Supekar,Sanjana Nair, Gulzar Singh and M.S.Madhusudhan.

(India Science Wire)

Twitter handle: @ndpsr

Published on December 13, 2019