On September 8^th, Cell Chemical Biology published the latest research findings on the Ebola Virus by Zhou Xiang’s research group from School of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University and Zhang Bo’s research group from Wuhan Institute of Virology, CAS. The article, titled “Chemical Targeting of a G-quadruplex RNA in the Ebola Virus L Gene”, provides the first evidence that G-quadruplex RNA is present in a negative-sense RNA virus. More importantly, it suggests that G-quadruplex RNA stabilization may represent a new therapeutic strategy against Ebola virus disease.

Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness to humans. Neither proven treatment nor licensed vaccines are now available for EVD. Given the high fatality rate of EVD, it has raised global concern. Currently, high-throughput screening is the most common approach to the development of EVD treatment. This research, however, first demonstrate that a highly conserved G-rich sequence is present in the EBOV L gene and can fold into G4 RNA, which can be used as a new target accordingly. This finding sheds new light on the design and improvement of drug against EVD.

The article points out that the structure of G-quadruplex (G4) is highly diverse and remains a focus of current research. Research finds that a conserved guanine-rich sequence is present in the Zaire Ebola virus L gene, and this sequence tends to fold into a G-quadruplex RNA structure, whose target stabilization can inhibit the replication of certain RNA within the virus. Furthermore, TMPyP4 has shown to inhibit intracellular replication of artificial Zaire Ebola virus mini-genome.

Professor Zhou Xiang and Tian Tian from Wuhan University School of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences and Zhang Bo from Wuhan Institute of Virology, CAS are co-corresponding authors of the paper. Wang Shaoru, Zhang Qiuyan and Wang Jiaqi are joint first authors. The research has received support from both the National Basic Research Program of China (973 program) and the National Natural Science Fund.

Source: http://www.cell.com/cell-chemical-biology/fulltext/S2451-9456(16)30285-9

(Rewritten by Fang Siyuan) 

(Edited by Wu Siying, Edmund Wai Man Lai and Hu Sijia)