Critical Amino Acid Residues on Filovirus Glycoproteins

总结：已证明负责启动丝状病毒病毒感染的病毒蛋白是糖蛋白（GP）。 我们计划使用丙氨酸扫描诱变在马尔堡和埃博拉丝状病毒株的GP cDNA中引入突变。 携带对照或突变丝状病毒糖蛋白（GP）的逆转录病毒假型将用于评估这些突变对病毒嗜性和进入的影响。 本研究的目的是鉴定丝状病毒GP上促进病毒进入所必需的表位。 然后，这种结构域的鉴定可以允许随后合理设计可以抑制丝状病毒感染的试剂。 我们直到2002年7月才收到启动该项目工作的试剂，因此目前提供任何结果的摘要还为时过早。

Summary: The viral protein responsible for initiating viral infection of filoviruses has been shown to be the glycoprotein (GP). We plan to use alanine-scanning mutagenesis to introduce mutations in the GP cDNAs for both the Marburg and Ebola strains of filovirus. Retroviral pseudotypes bearing control or mutated filovirus glycoproteins (GPs) will be used to assess the effect of these mutations on viral tropism and entry. The goal of this study is to identify an epitope on the filovirus GP that is necessary to facilitate viral entry. Identification of such a domain may then allow for subsequent rational design of agents that may inhibit filovirus infection. We only received the reagents to initiate work on this project in July, 2002, so it is too early to provide a summary of any results at this time.