Rajik Mohamed, Omar Abdul Rahman, Ideris Aini, Hassan Sharifah Syed, Yusoff Khatijah
Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
Int J Biol Sci. 2009 Aug 8;5(6):543-8. doi: 10.7150/ijbs.5.543.
Avian influenza viruses (AIV), the causative agent of avian flu or bird flu, cause widespread morbidity and mortality in poultry. The symptoms of the disease range from mild flu like symptoms to death. These viruses possess two important surface glycoproteins, namely hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) against which neutralizing antibodies are produced. Due to the highly mutative nature of the genes which encode these proteins, the viruses often confer resistance to the current anti-viral drugs making the prevention and treatment of infection challenging. In our laboratory, we have recently identified a novel anti-viral peptide (P1) against the AIV H9N2 from a phage displayed peptide library. This peptide inhibits the replication of the virus in ovo and in vitro by its binding to the HA glycoprotein. In the current study, we demonstrate that the peptide inhibits the virus replication by preventing the attachment to the host cell but it does not have any effect on the viral fusion. The reduction in the viral nucleoprotein (NP) expression inside the host cell has also been observed during the peptide (P1) treatment. This novel peptide may have the potential to be developed as a therapeutic agent for the treatment and control of avian influenza virus H9N2 infections.
禽流感病毒（AIV）是禽流感或鸟流感的病原体，可在家禽中引起广泛的发病和死亡。该疾病的症状从轻微的流感样症状到死亡不等。这些病毒具有两种重要的表面糖蛋白，即血凝素（HA）和神经氨酸酶（NA），针对它们会产生中和抗体。由于编码这些蛋白质的基因具有高度突变性，病毒常常对当前的抗病毒药物产生抗性，这使得感染的预防和治疗具有挑战性。在我们实验室，我们最近从噬菌体展示肽库中鉴定出一种针对AIV H9N2的新型抗病毒肽（P1）。该肽通过与HA糖蛋白结合来抑制病毒在鸡胚内和体外的复制。在当前研究中，我们证明该肽通过阻止病毒附着于宿主细胞来抑制病毒复制，但对病毒融合没有任何影响。在肽（P1）处理期间，还观察到宿主细胞内病毒核蛋白（NP）表达的减少。这种新型肽可能有潜力被开发为治疗和控制禽流感病毒H9N2感染的治疗剂。
