Assembly functions of respiratory syncytial virus matrix protein

呼吸道合胞病毒(RSV)是婴幼儿下呼吸道感染(肺炎和毛细支气管炎)的最重要原因。除了RSV感染本身的发病率外，众所周知，婴儿时期有症状的RSV感染容易在以后的生活中患上哮喘。由于所有婴儿在2岁前至少感染一次RSV，这种病毒是一个重大的公共卫生问题。此外，RSV的再次感染越来越被认为是老年人和免疫功能低下患者严重下呼吸道疾病的一个原因。这项研究的目的是更好地了解RSV在哺乳动物细胞中复制自身的机制。这项工作的信息可以用来设计治疗RSV的新型抗病毒药物，以及可能有助于开发RSV活疫苗的新的减毒突变。这项研究的重点是一种关键的病毒蛋白--基质(M)蛋白，它参与了病毒复制的许多步骤。我们的目标是了解M蛋白如何与病毒的其他成分(特别是包膜蛋白)相互作用，以协调病毒组装。为了协调新病毒颗粒的组装，M蛋白与部分病毒包膜糖蛋白和RSV核衣壳(病毒的内部机制)结合，使它们在细胞膜上聚集在一起。负责RSV M蛋白这些功能的蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用将被确定。

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the single most important cause of lower respiratory infections (pneumonia and bronchiolitis) in young infants. In addition to the morbidity of RSV infection itself, it is well established that symptomatic RSV infection in infancy predisposes to asthma later in life. As all infants are infected by RSV at least once by age 2 yrs, this virus represents a major public health problem. Additionally, re-infection by RSV is increasingly being recognized as a cause of severe lower respiratory disease in the elderly and in immunocompromised patients. The goal of this research is to understand better the mechanisms used by RSV to replicate itself in mammalian cells. Information from this work could be used to design novel antiviral drugs to treat RSV, and novel attenuating mutations that may assist in developing live RSV vaccines. The research focuses on a key viral protein, the matrix (M) protein, which is involved in many steps in virus replication. We aim to understand how M protein interacts with other components of the virus (specifically, envelope proteins) to orchestrate virus assembly. To coordinate assembly of new virus particles, M protein binds to portions of virus envelope glycoproteins and to RSV nucleocapsids (the internal machinery of the virus), bringing them together at the cell membrane. The protein-protein interactions which are responsible for these functions of RSV M protein will be determined.