BACK TO CONTENTS   |    PDF   |    PREVIOUS   |    NEXT

Title

Receptor modification as a therapeutic approach against viral diseases

 

Authors

Rabia Farid, Mohammad Haroon Khan & Hamid Rashid*

 

Affiliation

Department of Bioinformatics, Muhammad Ali Jinnah University Islamabad, Pakistan.

 

Email

drhamid@jinnah.edu.pk; *Corresponding author

 

Article Type

Hypothesis

 

Date

Received April 02, 2012; Accepted April 05, 2012; Published April 13, 2012

Abstract

Poliovirus causes flaccid paralysis through the destruction of motor neurons in the CNS. Susceptibility to its infection is mainly due to the interaction in between the surface capsid proteins and its receptors on the host cell surface, important for binding, penetration and other necessary events during early infection. Receptor modification is a new approach to treat viral diseases by the modification of target proteins structure. Binding domains are modified in an effective way to make it difficult for the virus to recognize it. In this study, tolerant and intolerant induced mutations in the poliovirus receptor, VP1 and VP2 were identified and substituted in the seed sequence to get the modified versions. Substitutions causing changes in initial folding were short listed and further analyzed for high level folding, physiochemical properties and interactions. Highest RMSD values were observed in between the seed and the mutant K90F (3.265 Å) and Q130W (3.270Å) respectively. The proposed substitutions were found to have low functional impact and thus can be further tested and validated by the experimental researchers. Interactions analyses proved most of the substitutions having decreased affinity for both the VP1 and VP2 and thus are of significant importance against poliovirus. This study will play an important role for bridging computational biology to other fields of applied biology and also will provide an insight to develop resistance against viral diseases. It is also expected that same approach can also be applicable against other viruses like HCV, HIV and other in near future

 

Keywords

Poliovirus, receptor, modification, substitution, structure prediction, docking.

 

Citation

Farid et al. Bioinformation 8(7): 331-335 (2012)

Edited by

P Kangueane

 

ISSN

0973-2063

 

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

 

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.