IIT-Mandi team decodes ‘dark proteins’ of chikungunya virus

Shimla, November 14

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Mandi have identified the ‘dark’ regions in the proteins of chikungunya virus, an advance that could help design improved drugs to treat the disease.

The dark proteome is defined as proteins with structures that cannot be determined by conventional methods, such as X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy.

Unlike conventional proteins, the dark proteome are unable to fold spontaneously into single, well-defined 3D structures, making it difficult for scientists to understand their properties.

The research, led by Rajanish Giri, assistant professor at IIT-Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, is aimed at understanding the structure and action of the virus through computational studies.

Collaborating with Vladimir Uversky from the University of South Florida, the research, published in the journal ‘RSC Advances’ identified the molecular recognition features of the virus (MoRF).

“The pathogenic mechanism of mosquito-borne chikungunya is not fully understood as yet because of the scarcity of information about the structure and non-structure of the viral proteins,” said Giri.

“Our research seeks to fill this gap in knowledge,” he said.The team used multiple computational tools to identify the MoRFs in the proteins of the chikungunya virus. They found that all chikungunya virus proteins have at least one MoRF crucial for signalling events during survival and pathogenesis of the virus.

Researchers hope that once all molecular mechanisms of the virus proteins are deciphered and protein-protein interactions are understood, there would be a better path towards the design of specific drug molecules that can act against this virus.

The WHO reports that more than 1.5 million deaths worldwide are caused by viral infections every year, say researchers.

Given that there were 3,20,000 mammalian viruses that could potentially infect human beings, their hope of preventing and treating virus-borne diseases hinged on rigorous research enterprise, they said. —PTI