The Agriculture, Forestry and Livestock Quarantine Headquarters (Director Bong-gyun Park) announced on the 29th that the proteolytic enzyme of the foot-and-mouth disease virus has discovered a new mechanism of action that inhibits the innate immune response in host cells infected with the foot-and-mouth disease virus.
The proteolytic enzyme of foot-and-mouth disease virus is a protein involved in the formation of viral particles in cells, and plays a role in the intracellular innate immune response, but its detailed mechanism of action was not known.
The Quarantine Division has revealed a new mechanism of action by which foot-and-mouth disease virus avoids innate immune response by experimentally demonstrating that the proteolytic enzyme of foot-and-mouth disease virus degrades receptor protein (MDA5)*, which plays an important role in intracellular innate immunity. .
It has been known that the MDA5 protein is involved in the innate immune evasion mechanism of foot-and-mouth disease virus, but the specific mechanism of action has not been known, so this study is the first case in the world to experimentally investigate the mechanism of action, and is published in the latest online edition of the International Journal of Cells. Was published.
Based on the mechanism discovered this time, it is expected that new antiviral drugs that can fundamentally control foot-and-mouth disease virus infection can be developed by inhibiting the action of proteolytic enzymes or regulating the binding of proteases to target MDA5 protein.
Park Jong-hyun, head of the foot-and-mouth disease vaccine research center of the Quarantine Division, said, “The newly revealed intracellular innate immunity evasion mechanism of foot-and-mouth disease virus will be usefully utilized in the development of foot-and-mouth disease virus control technology in the future. “We will continue to develop eggplant source technologies and ultimately contribute to national defense.”