Unraveling the mysterious XMRV virus
Milestone recently achieved as researchers "solve the structure" of one XMRV protein
Work with the XMRV virus is "potentially explosively important," Sarafianos said. The letters stand for Xenotropic Murine-Leukemia-Virus Related Virus, and it's the third-ever retrovirus that targets humans, he said. The other two are HIV and HTLV, a virus associated with certain types of leukemia and lymphoma.
Currently no clinical test exists to determine if a person carries XMRV, nor do scientists know exactly what the virus does to the body, but "it could be in the blood supply," he said. No links to specific diseases have been positively established yet; however, the virus is subject to intense research by government medical scientists, who are looking into possible relationships between XMRV and prostate cancer and/or chronic fatigue, he said.
Sarafianos' lab is investigatating compounds that could inhibit the XMRV virus from reproducing itself. If XMRV is found to indeed be causing the above diseases or others, scientists will have a jump on developing treatment, he said.
Just recently, Sarafianos' lab "solved the crystal structure" of one of the proteins within the XMRV virus, he said. This particular protein is required for viral replication and could be a good target for potential antiviral therapies, he said.In this case, "solving the structure" means identifying the protein's three-dimensional detailed shape so accurately that researchers will be able to design a molecule which can bind tightly to that protein and potently block its biological activity, he said.
"It's like a lock and key. If we know what the lock looks like, we can make the key," Sarafianos said. "So information on the structure is important. It guides design for structure-based drugs."
This is the first XMRV protein for which the structure has been solved by any research group, anywhere, he said.
Collaborators on the XMRV research are Donald Burke, Marc Johnson, and Shan-Lu Liu, who are also Bond Life Sciences Center investigators. They all work in the molecular microbiology and immunology department at the University of Missouri.