August 13, 2014

expert reaction to paper examining how Ebola virus disables immune response

Researchers publishing in the journal Cell Host & Microbe reported that the Ebola protein VP24 disrupts a cell’s innate immune response, a first step towards causing the disease.

Dr Ben Neuman, Virologist, University of Reading, said:

“Our bodies use a molecule called interferon to fight viruses. Interferon sets off a wave of distress signals bound for the cell’s nucleus.  Those messages can switch on internal defences and call to the immune system for extra help.

“This study shows just how nefarious the Ebola virus can be.  Ebolavirus carries a small tool that intercepts the cell’s distress signals, and when this happens, it disables some of the most useful machinery that our bodies have for fighting Ebola.  That leaves the body with only crude defences that are less effective at stopping the virus, and end up causing much of the damage that can eventually lead to death.”

‘Ebola virus VP24 targets a unique NLS binding site on Karyopherin Alpha 5 to selectively compete with nuclear import of Phosphorylated STAT1’ by Wei Xu et al. published in Cell Host & Microbe on Wednesday 13 August 2014.

Declared interests

None declared