Highly lethal Ebola virus has diagnostic Achilles' heel for biothreat detection, scientists say

Potential weakness identified in make-up of these deadly agents can immediately yield a sensitive test

2013-04-06

(Press-News.org) By screening a library of a billion llama antibodies on live Ebola viruses in the Texas Biomedical Research Institute's highest biocontainment laboratory, scientists in San Antonio have identified a potential weakness in the make-up of these deadly agents that can immediately yield a sensitive test. "Detecting single viral protein components can be challenging, especially at very low levels. However, most viruses are repetitive assemblies of a few components, called antigens, with some existing as polymers which present highly 'avid' targets for antibodies," said Texas Biomed virologist Andrew Hayhurst, Ph.D. "Think of one pair of microscopic Velcro hooks where one hook is the viral antigen and the other is the antibody and it is a weak interaction. Have a thousand pairs of hooks and it makes a very powerful interaction… just like Velcro fasteners on hiking gear," Hayhurst explained. The screening performed by Hayhurst and assistant Laura Jo Sherwood guided the selection of llama antibodies recognizing a polymer hiding within Ebola called nucleoprotein (NP). Remarkably, each antibody could be used in its own right to form a sensitive test for the Ebola NP, whereas most tests would require two different antibodies driving up costs and characterization times. This research -- funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH), Defense Threat Reduction Agency Basic Science Program/Office of Naval Research and the Texas Biomedical Research Institute -- was published today in the journal PLOS ONE. "Ebola NP is rather like a cob of corn displaying hundreds of kernels linked in a repetitive polymer, giving us the perfect molecular magnet to attract llama antibodies that can be assembled into highly avid assays based on a single antibody," Hayhurst said. "Intriguingly, while using one antibody to polymers and aggregates has been put to use in neurodegenerative disease diagnostics for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other disorders, it has lagged behind in emerging viral diagnostics. We showcase its simplicity and effectiveness for viral threat detection here and it may well be useful for detecting other emerging viruses." ### Hayhurst's research received NIH support from award R21 AI73394-2 and construction grant C06 RR12087. His paper is available at 4 PM CT on April 5 at http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061232 Texas Biomed, formerly the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, is one of the world's leading independent biomedical research institutions dedicated to advancing global human health through innovative biomedical research. Located on a 200-acre campus on the northwest side of San Antonio, Texas, the Institute partners with hundreds of researchers and institutions around the world, targeting advances in the fight against emerging infectious diseases, AIDS, hepatitis, malaria, parasitic infections and a host of other diseases, as well as cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, obesity, cancer, psychiatric disorders, and problems of pregnancy. For more information on Texas Biomed, go to http://www.TxBiomed.org, or call Joe Carey, Texas Biomed's Vice President for Public Affairs, at 210-258-9437.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Treatments, not prevention, dominate diabetes research

2013-04-06

DURHAM, NC – Research for diabetes is far more focused on drug therapies than preventive measures, and tends to exclude children and older people who have much to gain from better disease management, according to a Duke Medicine study. By analyzing nearly 2,500 diabetes-related trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov from 2007-10, the authors provide a broad overview of the research landscape for diabetes. The effort is part of the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative, a public-private partnership founded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Duke University ...

Diabetes trials worldwide are not addressing key issues in affected populations

2013-04-06

An analysis of diabetes trials worldwide has found they are not addressing key issues relating to the condition with almost two thirds focusing on drug therapy while only one in ten addresses prevention or behavioural therapies. The research is published in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), and is by Dr Jennifer Green, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA, and colleagues. There are an estimated 371 million people with diabetes in the world. By 2030, there will be some 550 million with diabetes based on current ...

Huge disparities in hypertension seen across US counties

2013-04-06

SEATTLE – One in five Americans are completely unaware that they are at risk for the second leading cause of premature death: high blood pressure. In the first ever analysis of awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension for every county, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington revealed significant differences across the US. The study found the largest burden of hypertension in the southeast, the lowest prevalence in Colorado, and differences among genders, ethnic groups and geographies. But despite high prevalence ...

Electron conflict leads to 'bad traffic' on way to superconductivity

2013-04-06

HOUSTON -- (April 5, 2013) -- Rice University physicists on the hunt for the origins of high-temperature superconductivity have published new findings this week about a seemingly contradictory state in which a material simultaneously exhibits the conflicting characteristics of both a metallic conductor and an insulator. In a theoretical analysis this week in Physical Review Letters (PRL), Rice physicists Qimiao Si and Rong Yu offer an explanation for a strange series of observations described earlier this year by researchers at the Stanford Linear Accelerator ...

Stem cells enable personalized treatment for bleeding disorder

2013-04-06

Scientists have shed light on a common bleeding disorder by growing and analysing stem cells from patients' blood to discover the cause of the disease in individual patients. The technique may enable doctors to prescribe more effective treatments according to the defects identified in patients' cells. In future, this approach could go much further: these same cells could be grown, manipulated, and applied as treatments for diseases of the heart, blood and circulation, including heart attacks and haemophilia. The study focused on von Willebrand disease (vWD), which ...

Liver transplantation for patients with genetic liver conditions has high survival rate

2013-04-06

Chicago (April 5, 2013): Patients faced with the diagnosis of a life-threatening liver disease have to consider the seriousness of having a liver transplant, which can be a definitive cure for many acquired and genetic liver diseases. Among the main considerations are the anxiety of waiting for a donor organ, the risks associated with the transplant operation, and the chance that the transplant procedure will not achieve the desired result. There is also the six-figure cost of the procedure and accompanying patient care, all of which may not be completely covered by health ...

SFU researchers help unlock pine beetle's Pandora's box

2013-04-06

Twenty researchers — more than half of them Simon Fraser University graduates and/or faculty — could become eastern Canada's knights in shining white lab coats. A paper detailing their newly created sequencing of the mountain pine beetle's (MPB) genome will be gold in the hands of scientists trying to stem the beetle's invasion into eastern forests. The journal Genome Biology has published the paper. "We know a lot about how beetle infestations can devastate forests, just as the mountain pine beetle has been doing to B.C.'s lodgepole pines," says Christopher Keeling, ...

Experts call for research on prevalence of delayed neurological dysfunction after head injury

2013-04-06

One of the most controversial topics in neurology today is the prevalence of serious permanent brain damage after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Long-term studies and a search for genetic risk factors are required in order to predict an individual's risk for serious permanent brain damage, according to a review article published by Sam Gandy, MD, PhD, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in a special issue of Nature Reviews Neurology dedicated to TBI. About one percent of the population in the developed world has experienced TBI, which can cause serious long-term ...

UT Arlington motor skills research nets good news for middle-aged

2013-04-06

People in their 20s don't have much on their middle-aged counterparts when it comes to some fine motor movements, researchers from UT Arlington have found. In a simple finger-tapping exercise, study participants' speed declined only slightly with age until a marked drop in ability with participants in their mid-60s. Priscila Caçola, an assistant professor of kinesiology at The University of Texas at Arlington, hopes the new work will help clinicians identify abnormal loss of function in their patients. Though motor ability in older adults has been studied widely, not ...

Corporate accounting earnings data relevant for determining value of the aggregate stock market

2013-04-06

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS - While teaching a course on financial information analysis, Asst. Prof. Panos Patatoukas observed that capital market participants and policy makers are increasingly turning to accounting earnings data from corporate financial reports for hints regarding the prospects of the aggregate stock market. This observation indicated that, at the aggregate level, accounting earnings data could be relevant for gauging the value of the entire stock market. Patatoukas, Haas Accounting Group, became so intrigued that he ...

Highly lethal Ebola virus has diagnostic Achilles' heel for biothreat detection, scientists say

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: