[HN Gopher] Programmable icosahedral shell system for virus trap...
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Programmable icosahedral shell system for virus trapping
Author : NextGenLog
Score : 84 points
Date : 2021-08-18 13:39 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cacm.acm.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (cacm.acm.org)
| bbarnett wrote:
| We already know that viruses play a role in cross species genetic
| transfer.
|
| And we still don't 100% know if HERV serves some real purpose or
| not.
|
| I hope this "all viruses" is "when we choose to go after specific
| ones".
| mdbauman wrote:
| Yep, it sounds like a (semi?)unique structure is required for
| each target virus.
|
| > A specific combination of nucleotides is first modeled in
| simulation to be the correct size to handle the target virus
| chwzr wrote:
| for my understanding its the combination of shell size and
| coating which does the targeting.
| silvester23 wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Dietz said the interior of the shells were coated with
| "antibodies specific for the hepatitis-B virus. You can think
| of the shells as a generic platform; depending on your
| selection of inner coatings, you can 'program' them to be
| specific for a user-defined target virus."
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Um, you go ahead and volunteer for cross-species genetic
| transfer experiments. I'll take the innoculation thanks.
| toytoyr wrote:
| What happens to the millions of traps floating inside a person's
| bloodstream after they do their job? Do they eventually get
| dismantled by the immune system?
| tmikaeld wrote:
| Maybe? It's formulated really badly, you don't know if they
| mean the virus or the traps...
|
| "Subsequent in vivo (within a living organism) testing on mice
| showed the DNA-origami traps were capable of targeting
| individual virions inside the body, disarming them without
| disrupting bodily functions, and finally destroying them with
| natural immunological mechanisms."
| rolph wrote:
| free floating DNA is a pathogenic state of affairs and will
| be phagocytosed, the aptamer/virion complex will be shredded
| and the molecular debris is incorporated into antigen
| presenting complex initiating development of immunity
| sjg007 wrote:
| DNA and RNA get degraded all the time..
| scotty79 wrote:
| > Subsequent in vivo (within a living organism) testing on mice
| showed the DNA-origami traps were capable of targeting individual
| virions inside the body, disarming them without disrupting bodily
| functions, and finally destroying them with natural immunological
| mechanisms.
|
| It's wonderfully surprising that body can have bunch of free
| floating DNA constructs inside without triggering strong immune
| response.
| dnautics wrote:
| > It's wonderfully surprising that body can have bunch of free
| floating DNA constructs inside without triggering strong immune
| response.
|
| I would be very scared of a free floating DNA machinery
| therapeutic, as Lupus is associated with anti-dsDNA, (to be
| fair we don't know what direction the causal arrow is), and
| it's such a long and chronic condition that I would doubt the
| ability to model it in early stage preclinical or even find it
| in phase I safety. For some conditions phase 4 is way too late.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| yeah this feels like a prime candidate for sci fi "good thing
| turned out to be a bad thing"
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > Subsequent in vivo testing on mice showed the DNA-origami
| traps were capable of targeting individual virions
|
| ... in mice.
|
| Sorry, that's an in-joke:
|
| https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice
|
| https://jamesheathers.medium.com/in-mice-explained-77b61b598...
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Mouse bodies, anyway.
| alecst wrote:
| Original paper:
| https://www.fradenlab.com/app/download/9774776565/s41563-021...
|
| Edit: sorry for the previously bad link. Didn't notice.
|
| From what I get, it looks like the traps basically smother the
| viral shell and prevent it from interacting with any surfaces.
|
| They tried a couple methods to achieve this. Either assembling
| the shells around the virus, or starting with pre-assembled
| shells with a hole in them (an icosahedron with a pentagon
| missing.) For the latter case, they were able to neutralize more
| than one viral particle by making the shells big enough.
|
| My main question is how the viruses find their way reliably into
| these preassembled traps.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| > My main question is how the viruses find their way reliably
| into these preassembled traps.
|
| I've always wondered that about enzymes, just one of the many
| reasons I'm not a biochemist.
| candiodari wrote:
| Brownian motion means molecules inside your body move at
| ~10000kph (and because it's random they don't go anywhere).
| They're bouncing around at that speed inside a 30 cubic
| micrometer ball.
|
| At that speed they meet every other molecule. Not just meet,
| but touch them everywhere, at every angle, in every
| configuration.
| eutectic wrote:
| I guess this wouldn't work as a cure for HIV if it only kills
| actively replicating virus. Still amazing if it works in
| practice.
| [deleted]
| gene-h wrote:
| The traps require antibodies specific to the virus, so what's the
| advantage of this over other antibody therapies? Producing
| antibodies for therapies is expensive enough and producing DNA
| origami may not necessarily scale.
| sjg007 wrote:
| DNA apatmers are used all the time in science. The key will be
| productizing them for in vivo delivery. They would have to be
| immuno-reactive only when they bind their target and the
| response will need to be to the target and not the aptamer.
| EGreg wrote:
| That's APTAMERS btw for anyone reading
| rolph wrote:
| its good that you underscore that, there is the ADaptOmer
| that is also a DNA strand but is used as an adapter to bind
| two other molecular entities into an ADAPTOMER complex.
|
| APtamers bind a single entity
| chrisweekly wrote:
| > "Using computational genetic engineering, researchers at the
| Technical University of Munich (TUM) say they have invented a
| method of killing any type of virus. The researchers say they
| have demonstrated their solution on previously incurable
| hepatitis-B viruses, and are next aiming at the coronavirus.
|
| The deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) origami base-pair key-in-lock
| method they devised yields sphere-like icosahedral shells that
| kill viruses by clamping around each virion (the complete,
| infective form of a virus outside a host cell) until it is dead,
| dead, dead."
|
| This sounds pretty amazing. Human trials being "years away" is no
| surprise, but here's hoping it gets there soon.
| dynamite-ready wrote:
| This sounds like an even bigger story than the Moderna HIV
| vaccine trial post yesterday.
| not2b wrote:
| Don't think so. One is a promising-sounding experiment, the
| other is a serious effort by a company with a track record of
| delivering effective vaccine doses by the billion that already
| has something ready for human trials.
| dsign wrote:
| This is very cool. But the article doesn't say anywhere if the
| effect is high enough to cure disease.
| dotcommand wrote:
| Thought this was going to be about computer viruses and was
| wondering how traps could possibly combat it. But alas it's about
| biological viruses.
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