Texas A&M University's Institute of Biosciences and Technology
2121 W. Holcombe Blvd, Houston TX 77030-3303
Contact: Kay Kendall, 713-677-7736; [email protected]
Vaccinia, Gene Therapy and New Vaccines
HOUSTON -- The virus that helped wipe out smallpox -- a benign
pox virus called vaccinia -- may now help develop new gene therapies
and genetically engineered vaccines, according to Texas A&M
University's Institute of Biosciences and Technology.
Vaccinia virus will be especially useful because it acts
differently from other viruses when it infects other cells,
says IBT molecular biologist Paul D. Gershon.
Most viruses use specialized enzymes found in the
nuclei of the cells they infect when they reproduce.
Vaccinia, however, expresses its genes without using the
host cell's genes. It can do this because it carries with
it analogs, or copies, of the enzymes it needs.
These "home-grown" enzyme copies make vaccinia useful,
because these copies are often easier to study than the
equivalent enzymes from the cell nuclei, Gershon says.
Gershon is using a $270,000 grant from the National
Science Foundation to study exactly how one of these
special enzymes operates. He will investigate the
fundamental mechanisms of how genes -- the building blocks
of viruses (and humans) -- are expressed. How the enzyme
interacts and modifies RNA is of special interest.
Gershon and crystallographer Florante Quiocho of the
Baylor College of Medicine's Howard Hughes Medical
Institute recently determined the three-dimensional
structure of the enzyme -- an important step toward
understanding how it works.
It was the first three dimensional structure solved for
any protein in the class RNA methyltransferase, one that
modifies RNA in a specific manner known as methylation,
Gershon says.
"The significance of the work is that the enzyme we are
studying, cap-specific 2'-O-methyltransferase, plays a role
in the expression of all mammalian genes," Gershon says.
"The newly funded work will be guided mainly by questions
arising from the recently available 3-D structure."
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