Targeting the shell of the Ebola virus for a knock-out with antivirals

How can we battle these infectious agents such as Ebola virus disease (EVD) that reproduce by hijacking cells and reprogramming them into virus-replicating machines? A research team led by Professor Juan Perilla at the University of Delaware are using supercomputers to simulate the inner workings of Ebola, observing the way molecules move, atom by atom, to carry out their functions. In a new paper, the researchers detail structural features of the virus’s coiled protein shell, or nucleocapsid, that may be promising therapeutic targets, more easily destabilized and knocked out by an antiviral treatment. “The Ebola nucleocapsid looks like a Slinky walking spring, whose neighboring rings are connected,” Perilla said. “We tried to find what factors control the stability of this spring in our computer simulations.” The life cycle of Ebola is highly dependent on this coiled nucleocapsid, which surrounds the virus’s genetic material consisting of a single strand of ribonucleic acid (ssRNA). Nucleoproteins...