Role of lipid rafts in virus infiltration

Date:
June 15, 2020
Source:
University of Pittsburgh
Summary:
New research sheds light on how and why the cell membrane forms
and grows lipid rafts triggered by ligand-receptor activity. The
work could lead to new strategies and innovative approaches to
prevent or fight the action of the virus through the integration
of biomedical and engineering knowledge.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A cell's membrane acts as a natural shield, a fence around the cell that protects and contains it. It mediates processes that let nutrients through
and let waste out, and it acts as a physical barrier to the entry of toxic substances and pathogens, like the viruses SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2,
the one that causes COVID-19.


==========================================================================
Such pathogens, however, employ clever strategies to trick and penetrate
the cell, thereby replicating themselves and infecting the human body. The virus deceives the membrane by exposing specific anti-receptors to
which suitable cell's receptors normally bind. The virus tricks the
receptors into believing that what's landing is something else, namely
an affine ligand, something that is safe. Such a process activates
and grows thickened zones along the cell membrane, or "lipid rafts,"
which are more likely to permit the virus to alter the cell's membrane, yielding its entry into the cell.

New interdisciplinary research published in the Journal of the Mechanics
and Physics of Solids sheds light on how and why the cell membrane forms
and grows lipid rafts triggered by ligand-receptor activity. The work
could lead to new strategies and innovative approaches to prevent or
fight the action of the virus through the integration of biomedical and engineering knowledge.

"Although lipid rafts' influence on a cell's response to external agents
has been deeply investigated, the physical components of what takes
place during ligand-binding has not yet been fully understood," said
Luca Deseri, research professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson School of Engineering in the Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Department, full professor and head of the graduate school in Engineering
at DICAM-University of Trento in Italy, and corresponding author on the
paper. "Our team used an interdisciplinary approach to better understand
why active receptors tend to cluster on lipid rafts. More importantly,
we confirm and predict the formation of the complex ligand receptors."
Through the studies of how mechanical forces and biochemical interactions affect the cell membrane, this research sheds light on the way localized thickening across cell membranes is triggered by the formation of the
ligand- receptor complex. The researchers concluded that the formation
of ligand- receptor complexes could not take place in thinner zones
of the cell membrane; the thickening of the cell membrane provides
the necessary force relief to allow for configurational changes of the receptors, which then become more prone to ligand binding Understanding
the way viruses use lipid rafts to alter the cell wall could lead to new approaches to treat and prevent viruses, like the one that causes COVID-
19, from spreading in the body.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Pittsburgh. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Angelo R. Carotenuto, Laura Lunghi, Valentina Piccolo, Mahnoush
Babaei,
Kaushik Dayal, Nicola Pugno, Massimiliano Zingales, Luca
Deseri, Massimiliano Fraldi. Mechanobiology predicts raft
formations triggered by ligand-receptor activity across the cell
membrane. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 2020;
141: 103974 DOI: 10.1016/ j.jmps.2020.103974 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200615115719.htm

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