Science Daily May 24, 2023
There are currently no widely approved treatments or vaccines for the Lassa virus. An international team of researchers (USA – The Scripps Research Institute, University of Georgia, Tulane University School of Medicine, UK, Germany, the Netherlands) determined the structure of LASV glycoprotein complex (GPC) which mediates viral entry and is the sole target for neutralizing antibodies. Scientists have also struggled to isolate Lassa glycoproteins — the spike-like proteins that surround the virus and are the target of most antibodies. In the infectious virus, these glycoproteins exist in complexes of three, called trimers. For decades, however, scientists were only able to isolate glycoproteins in the lab as single proteins and not in their trimer complexes. The Scripps led team developed and characterized the prefusion-stabilized, trimeric GPCs of LASV lineages II, V, and VII, revealing structural conservation despite sequence diversity. They isolated and characterized a trimer-preferring neutralizing antibody belonging to the GPC-B competition group with an epitope that spans adjacent protomers and includes the fusion peptide. Their work provides molecular detail information on LASV antigenic diversity and will guide efforts to design pan-LASV vaccines… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Graphical abstract. Credit: Cell Reports, 2023; 42 (5): 112524, May 30, 2023Â