Coming Soon: A vaccine for Respiratory Infection

Mumbai: Respiratory infection, a common respiratory tract disorder that is estimated to cause over 100,000 deaths yearly worldwide, will be history soon as scientists get closer to developing a vaccine for it.

The infection that affects lower respiratory tract is caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Adults infected by the RSV show flu-like symptoms, but the virus often finds its prey in young children and the elderly for whom the disease becomes life-threatening. There has been no vaccine for the respiratory infection yet.

An international team of researchers from Finland and Switzerland solved the three-dimensional structure of the RSV in a bid to understand the three-dimensional structure of the virus and how it infects the body, to devise a cure for it. RSV is also related to measles and mumps viruses. According to the research, all three viruses parasitize human cells, stealing parts of the cell membrane to use as their own. In RSV the resulting virus membranes look likes tubes and spheres. We could show that the virus’ matrix protein controls this shape, says the thesis released by the research teams.

“The structural model helps us to understand how infectious viruses are formed. This information can be useful in the intelligent design of vaccines,” said researcher Lassi Liljeroos. “In addition, we observed that the fusion protein on the surface is in two different forms. The fusion protein is responsible for attaching the virus to human cells and invading them. This is an important finding because the fusion protein is the key molecule in developing therapeutic antibodies to the virus,” he said.

Liljeroos and other researchers worked under the guidance of Research Director Sarah Butcher of Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki and Professor Ari Helenius, ETH Zurich who worked towards solving the three-dimensional structure of RSV.