A key finding in San Diego may change the way researchers develop treatments and vaccines for the Zika virus.
Researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine found that when a person is infected with the Zika virus, a cell will change its RNA as a way to remove the virus. Their research was published Thursday in Cell Host & Microbe.
RNA is the genetic material that acts as a messenger for DNA in the body’s protein building process.
When the Zika virus infects a cell, the cell modifies viral RNA with N6-methyladenosine (m6A). Increasing m6A methylation decreased Zika virus production, the researchers found.
“These findings are also something researchers should keep in mind as they are designing new Zika virus vaccines and treatments that target the viral genome — some approaches won’t work unless they take methylation into account,” senior author Tariq Rana, PhD, professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine said in a written release.
Rana and his team made the discovery while comparing how the Zika virus treats a patient’s RNA and the HIV virus.
“We didn’t want to miss out on this important information the way we missed it for 30 years of HIV research,” Rana said.
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The school says the team of researchers will take these findings and look at how changes to RNA can affect the Zika virus as well as the likelihood that a molecule targeting specific structures within the RNA may be a way to treat the virus.
Study co-authors include: Gianluigi Lichinchi, Yinga Wu, UC San Diego and Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute; Boxuan Simen Zhao, Zhike Lu, Chuan He, University of Chicago and Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and Yue Qin, UC San Diego.
This research was funded, in part, by the National Institutes of Health and Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
