Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have
determined1 the most
detailed2 picture yet of a crucial part of the
hepatitis(肝炎) C virus, which the virus uses to infect liver cells. The new data reveal unexpected
structural3 features of this protein and should greatly speed efforts to make an effective hepatitis C
vaccine4. The findings, which appear in the November 29, 2013 issue of the journal Science, focus on a protein known as E2
envelope glycoprotein(包膜糖蛋白).
"We're excited by this development," said Ian A. Wilson, the Hansen Professor of Structural Biology at TSRI and a senior author of the new research with TSRI Assistant Professors Mansun Law and Andrew B.
Ward5. "It has been very hard to get a high resolution structure of E2 and it took years of
painstaking6 work to finally accomplish that."
Any successful hepatitis C vaccine is likely to target the E2 protein. Scientists already have
isolated7 rare antibodies from patients that can
bind8 E2 in ways that
neutralize9 a broad range of viral strains.
"It took our team six years to crack this very difficult scientific problem, but we didn't give up," said Law. "Now that we can
visualize10 the structural details of these
binding11 sites, we can design vaccine
molecules12 that
mimic13 them."