Glasgow scientists have used artificial intelligence to unravel never-before-seen details about viruses, potentially paving the way to new vaccines.
Working with colleagues based in Sydney, researchers at Glasgow University's Centre for Virus Research (CVR) used AI protein structure prediction to examine hundreds of species in the Flaviviridae, a large family of viruses that cause diseases such as Dengue, Zika and Hepatitis C.
There is currently no vaccine for Hep C - the the scientists behind the study believe their findings could change that.
The work reveals important insights into how viruses evolve and sheds light on the entry mechanisms used by viruses to get into the body and replicate in cells.
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It is one of the first times that AI protein structure prediction has been used in this way in virology, creating a new resource for other investigators.
The AI technology, AlphaFold and ESMFold - developed by Google Deep Mind and Meta - was used to discover and classify the entry proteins of all the viruses tested.
This would be impossible to do with traditional methods.
The researchers say their findings are an important step forward for future pandemic preparedness and current viral threats such as Mpox, for which scientists currently know very little about the entry proteins.
During the Covid pandemic, scientists harnessed existing knowledge of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, to quickly develop vaccines.
However, for many viruses, including Hepatitis C, the shape and mechanisms of the viral entry proteins are unknown.
This research demonstrates, for the first time, that Hepatitis C has a completely novel entry mechanism, unlike other viruses.
Dr Joe Grove, Senior Lecturer at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, said the team are "hugely excited" by the results of the study, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, Royal Society and Medical Research Council (MRC).
He said: "We are one of the first research groups to apply this AI technology at scale to viruses, and the results have huge implications for understanding how viruses get into our bodies and replicate, something which is critically important for future vaccine development, pandemic preparedness and furthering our knowledge of potential spillover viruses.
“By discovering more about the entry proteins on the outside of viruses, as we’ve done, we can better understand the fundamentals of viral biology, which in turn can guide development of drugs or vaccines."
Dr Grove added: “We are particularly excited about the discoveries about the entry proteins of Hepatitis C.
"There is currently no vaccine for hepatitis C, so we are hopeful that our new understanding of this virus’s entry mechanism will help lead to the development of a new vaccine.
“Going forward we want to use this technology to scale up our research to thousands of viruses.
"By doing this we can build foundational knowledge to inform our responses to existing and new viral diseases”
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