The Structural Basis of Ebola Viral Pathogenesis

The Structural Basis of Ebola Viral Pathogenesis

Air date: Wednesday, November 06, 2013, 3:00:00 PM

Description: The Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series presents the NIH Director's Lecture

Dr. Saphire's lab studies viruses with compact genomes that encode just four to seven genes each. Viruses with limited genomes offer a defined landscape of possible protein-protein interactions. Each protein is critical-many are obligated to perform multiple functions and some rearrange their structures to achieve those new functions. As a result, these few polypeptides accomplish a surprisingly complex set of biological functions including immune evasion, receptor recognition, cell entry, transcription, translation, assembly and exit. Dr. Saphire systematically analyzes the structures and functions of each protein encodes by the virus to gain fundamental insights into the biology of entry, immune evasion, and assembly, and to decipher the collaborative roles of these proteins in pathogenesis. In this lecture, Dr. Saphire will illustrate the molecular function throughout the viral life cycle: how the Ebola virus glycoprotein remodels itself during viral entry and how this remodeling affects the antibody response; how the Ebola and Lassa viruses suppress host innate immune signaling; and how the Ebola matrix protein assembles into one structure to bud new virions and into a different conformation to bind RNA and control transcription inside infected cells.

For more information go to http://wals.od.nih.gov

Author: Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Immunology and Microbial Science, The Scripps Research Institute

Runtime: 00:55:40

Permanent link: http://videocast.nih.gov/launch.asp?1...