Zika
virus has infected hundreds of thousands of people around the world, mostly in
the Americas. In the United States and its territories, more than 38,000 Zika
cases have been reported so far, most of them in Puerto Rico. There are no
vaccines or treatments to prevent or treat the symptoms of Zika infection.
To
test the virus, Dr. Zhao (University of Maryland School of Medicine) used
fission yeast, a species that in recent years has become a relatively common
way to test how pathogens affect cells. Fission yeast was originally used to
make beer, particularly in Africa, where it originated. (Its species name is
Schizosaccharomyces pombe; pombe means beer in Swahili.) Over decades, fission
yeast has been used by many scientists to find out mechanisms and behavior of
cells.
Dr.
Zhao is a pioneer in using the fission yeast model to study HIV, as well as the
Yellow Barley Dwarf virus, a plant pathogen that causes billions of dollars in
crop damage every year throughout the world. So he was very familiar with the
fission yeast model. "With Zika we are in a race against time," he
says. "I asked myself what I can do to help. I have this unique way of dissecting
the genome. So I started on this."
For the
experiment,
Dr. Zhao and his colleagues separated each of the virus's 14 proteins and small
peptides from the overall virus. He then exposed yeast cells to each of the 14
proteins, to see how the cells responded. Seven of the 14 proteins harmed or
damaged the yeast cells in some way, inhibiting their growth, damaging them or
killing them.
Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle
