The scientists have developed a drug that can recognize the cells infected with any type of virus. And then the antibiotic kills the pathogen infection, as the experts from the MIT Lincoln Laboratory explain.
The formerly known antibiotics used to act against the bacteria that cause colds, but they could not resist viruses. The new drug acts as follows: the viruses capture cellular mechanisms to create several strains of the major virus. Viruses produce long filaments of double-stranded RNA, not typical of human cells. Fighting against the infection, cell proteins interact with RNA and give rise to a string of reactions that prevent the spread of infection. However, the viruses block some steps in this chain reaction.
The scientists have managed to combine binding viral RNA protein with another DRACO protein, which triggers apoptosis of cells, or their programmed death. When one end of the DRACO protein binds to double-stranded RNA, another end of the DRACO receives the signal about apoptosis.
The new drug has been tested on 15 different viruses. The medicine was able to destroy such microorganisms as H1N1 influenza, H.pylori, the polio virus, the virus of dengue fever, and that of several other types of hemorrhagic fever.
Source of the image: Photl.
