Scientists were able to reveal the mechanism of action of the Ebola virus on the immune system of a person. This discovery will contribute to the improvement of working on successful drug against the epidemic.

The spread of the Ebola virus has forced many scientists epidemiologists to reconsider their views on viral infection, also to do a thorough study of both the disease and the means of combating it. The researchers acknowledge that they turned out to unravel the mystery of the deadly epidemic.

So, in the evolution of many viruses studied with varying degrees of capacity to resist the immune system of the planet. To achieve the desired result, the device of the disease began to take into account the difficulty of the production of interferons, which hampered the work of the immune system. The Ebola virus got its original capacity decontamination work interferons, a device which was not studied.

A team of scientists from the Medical school of the Washington Institute in St. Louis, working in collaboration with researchers southwestern medical center at Institute of Texas and other experts, has opened a protein eVP24 (e-Ebola, VP-Virus Protein, viral protein", 24 is a sequence number in the genome). He actually completely blocks the reaction of the immune system penetration.

So the virus gets the ease in which to multiply inside the body, then lock him immunity is no longer needed: the following response from cells of a protective system for repeatedly accrete the ranks of the virus may be so strong that the vital organs are permanently "on the scale of our study, we first show how a protein of Ebola virus kills the signals sent by interferons. This knowledge has already been applied to studies of pharmaceuticals against Ebola, which is present at very early stages of development," says 1 of the co-authors of the study Christopher Basler of the Medical center mount Sinai in the United States. Leading Creator works Gaia Amarasinghe of the Washington Institute in St. Louis indicates that new knowledge about the structure of the protein eVP24 and the mechanism of its action will help to understand the nature of the disease that in the future it is planned to wrap up against the epidemic.

The doctor Basler believes that detect antibodies or molecules that block eVP24, now will not be so hard. Importantly, doctors now understand what to look for. In addition, he believes that in the treatment of Ebola can be a useful additional injections of interferon, as is done, for example, in hepatitis C.
sections: Society, World News