Researchers study how glycans activate SARS-CoV-2
One thing that makes SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, elusive to the immune system is that it is covered in sugars called glycans. Once SARS-CoV-2 infects someone s body, it becomes covered in that person s unique glycans, making it difficult for the immune system to recognize the virus as something it needs to fight. Those glycans also play an important role in activating the virus.
Terra Sztain-Pedone, a graduate student, and colleagues in the labs of Rommie Amaro at the University of California, San Diego and Lillian Chong at the University of Pittsburgh, studied exactly how the glycans activate SARS-CoV-2. Sztain-Pedone will present the research on Thursday, February 25 at the 65th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society.
Scientists are still a long way from being able to treat Alzheimer's Disease, in part because the protein aggregates that can become brain plaques, a hallmark of the disease, are hard to study.
E-Mail
IMAGE: The amyloid beta protein that tangles to form the hallmark Alzheimer s brain plaques, cling to ultra-small bowls, called nanobowls, scientists find. They can use these nanobowls to remove the toxic. view more
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Vrinda Sant.
ROCKVILLE, MD - Scientists are still a long way from being able to treat Alzheimer s Disease, in part because the protein aggregates that can become brain plaques, a hallmark of the disease, are hard to study. The plaques are caused by the amyloid beta protein, which gets misshapen and tangled in the brain. To study these protein aggregates in tissue samples, researchers often have to use techniques that can further disrupt them, making it difficult to figure out what s going on. But new research by Vrinda Sant, a graduate student, and Madhura Som, a recent PhD graduate, in the lab of Ratnesh Lal at the University of California, San Diego, provides a new technique for studying amyloid beta and could be
What makes one coronavirus more infectious than the other? The lab of or Dr Mahmoud Moradi at the University of Arkansas has used molecular simulations, performed at the Texas Advanced Computing Center and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, to investigate this question.<br />