Researchers at the Center for the Development of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, CEDENNA, developed a method that makes it possible to predict proteins essential for vaccine development for viruses such as H1N1, HIV and SARS-CoV. Using this method, they discovered that three non-structural proteins of COVID-19 are key to the infection the virus causes in humans.
Drs. Felipe Torres and Miguel Kiwi (National Prize in Exact Sciences), members of CEDENNA, together with Dr. Iván K. Schuller (researcher at the University of California, San Diego, and CEDENNA international advisor), discovered that the proteins Nsp4, Nsp16 and Nsp12 play a key role in inhibiting the immune response of the human cell.
“The interactions of this set of proteins with the cell cause our immune system to suppress its ability to fight the virus,” says Dr. Torres, lead author of this research, just published in the prestigious journal Scientific Reports.
The proteins were identified thanks to the mathematical modeling system created by the three researchers, which can also be applied to other viruses to determine the proteins that are important in the infection process. Once identified, the biomedical strategy can focus on them, making it more effective against the disease.
“One of the goals of our study is to facilitate the development of new drugs to combat COVID-19, medicines or other treatments that target these proteins. New vaccination or treatment strategies can be created; that is, we must forget the target we had until now and focus on this other one to improve the immune response and prevent severe disease,” emphasizes Dr. Miguel Kiwi.
“The result we obtained is high impact,” adds Dr. Schuller, “considering that today the vast majority of vaccination strategies focus exclusively on the role of the Spike protein. Now that infections have started to rise again, and worldwide it is clear that the pandemic is not a thing of the past, this can be very important for developing new vaccination strategies.”
“We showed that eliminating certain non-structural proteins produces a significant change in the structure of the Coronavirus infection. In turn, this implies that eliminating a set of protein interactions reduces the effects of SARS-CoV-2, improving the human immune response. This method is a very useful tool for studying new Coronavirus variants and infections caused by other viruses,” stresses Dr. Torres.
