Ebola virus is a rare but deadly microbe that kills up to 90 percent of the people it infects. Now, scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified a part of the virus that likely is responsible for the massive internal bleeding leading to most of those deaths. Their research, published in the August edition of Nature Medicine, identifies a viral protein that destroys endothelial cells -- the cells that line the blood vessel walls. By attacking this protein, new drugs and vaccines may be designed to reduce or prevent the disease.
Ebola virus is the most infamous of the hemorrhagic fever viruses, a group of microbes found only in humans and monkeys. Although these outbreaks are not common or widespread, they have received much publicity because of their lethal nature and horrifying symptoms, which include high fever and massive internal bleeding. To add to the mystery, Ebola virus strikes sporadically, often devastating an isolated town or village before disappearing back into the jungle, where scientists believe it may hide away in an as yet unknown host.
Ebola strains from Zaire, Sudan and the Ivory Coast are usually fatal to humans, while a monkey strain that infected laboratory workers in Reston, Virginia, in 1989 failed to cause overt disease. The reason for this difference was not clear, but because Ebola virus produces several different proteins, researchers believe one or more of these likely holds the key.
While studying these viral proteins, Zhi-Yong Yang and Gary Nabel, M.D., Ph.D., of the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center (VRC), located on the NIH campus, led a research team investigating glycoprotein (GP), a sugar-containing molecule that sticks out from the surface of the Ebola virus. Along with other scientists from the VRC, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Yang and Dr. Nabel discovered that a specific portion of the pro
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Contact: Sam Perdue
sp189u@nih.gov
301-402-1663
NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
30-Jul-2000