一种可有效抵御埃博拉病毒感染新型靶向疗法—ZMapp抗体疗法

      2014年8月6日 讯 /生物谷BIOON/ --近日，来自斯克里普斯研究所(The Scripps Research Institute)的研究人员通过研究调查了抵御埃博拉病毒的抗体的作用机制，这其中就包括近期用于治疗感染埃博拉病毒的两名美国人的三种抗体，当这两名美国人接受名为ZMapp的实验性抗体混合剂后，其感染症状得到了明显的控制和缓解。

      研究者Erica Ollmann Saphire教授表示，目前我们正在利用电子显微镜和X射线晶体学技术对这些抗体的结构进行分析，依靠获取的图像我们发现了免疫系统分子结合埃博拉病毒的方式以及埃博拉病毒如何阻断免疫系统发挥功能，这对于后期开发阻断病毒复制的新型靶向药物很重要。

      埃博拉病毒是一种烈性病毒，其往往会引发感染个体中25%至90%的个体死亡，而病毒也会随着患者机体的血液和体液而感染其它健康个体；这项研究中研究者揭示了埃博拉病毒表面的易感位点，这样科学家就可以利用病毒表面的缺点来设计靶向药物（抗血清）将病毒杀灭。

      Zmapp疗法目前正在实验室研究阶段，其是当前最有用的抗体混合制剂，但是还需要对其进行改进；目前国立卫生研究院已经投入了2800万美元用于对其研究来检测这种抗体混合制剂的作用，研究者希望可以将其修饰成为可以最大化中和埃博拉病毒的混合制剂。

      一种理想化的抗体混合剂可以消除患者的症状，而且可以改善感染个体的预后情况，其不仅可以作为一种预防性措施而其可以保护个体免于病毒的侵袭。（生物谷Bioon.com）

英文报道：

The conditions of two Americans have reportedly improved since they received a highly experimental antibody cocktail called ZMapp, supplied by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical.

The TSRI laboratories of Professor Erica Ollmann Saphire and Assistant Professor Andrew Ward are studying the structures of these antibodies using techniques called electron microscopy, which creates high-resolution images by hitting samples with electrons, and X-ray crystallography, which determines the atomic structure of crystalline arrays of proteins. Through these images, the team will discover exactly how the immune system molecules bind to the Ebola virus and stop it from functioning, a critical step in drug development.

Ebola virus causes an extremely virulent disease that currently leads to death in 25 to 90 percent of cases. The fast-moving virus is spread via the blood or other bodily fluids of an infected person,

"What we're showing are sites of vulnerability on the surface of the virus," said C. Daniel Murin, a graduate student in the Saphire and Ward labs. "These are the chinks in the armor of the virus and the places were you would want your anti-serum to target."

The ZMapp treatment is still in experimental stages and has not yet been approved for use outside the two recent cases. According to Saphire, ZMapp is one of the best antibody cocktails currently known, but there may still be ways to improve it. She is currently leading a $28 million National Institutes of Health-funded consortium to test antibody cocktails from laboratories around the world, with the goal of finding the best for neutralizing Ebola virus and the many other viruses like it.

An ideal antibody cocktail would ease symptoms and improve the prognosis of infected individuals -- it could even work as a preventative measure, protecting healthcare workers before they enter an infected area.

The work on the Ebola virus is part of a larger Vaccine and Global Health Initiative at TSRI, which includes research on HIV/AIDS, influenza and tuberculosis.