A team of scientists developed a new method for treating various human diseases: cloak DNA in a shell of a nearly indestructible virus.
Publishing their work in the journal Science, the University of Virginia (UVA) Medical School researchers tested the toughness of their virus. In one instance, the virus survived acid at nearly boiling temperatures.
"What's interesting and unusual is being able to see how proteins and DNA can be put together in a way that's absolutely stable under the harshest conditions imaginable," Edward H. Egelman, of the UVA Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, said in a press release. "We've discovered what appears to be a basic mechanism of resistance - to heat, to desiccation, to ultraviolet radiation. And knowing that, then, we can go in many different directions, including developing ways to package DNA for gene therapy."
For their study, the researchers examined a virus called SIRV2. The virus lives in acidic hot springs and infects Sulfolobus islandicus, a microscopic organism, according to the release.
"Understanding how these bacterial spores work gives us potentially new abilities to destroy them," Egelman said. "Having this basic scientific research leads in many, many directions, most of which are impossible to predict, in terms of what the implications are going to be.
This is, I think, going to highlight once again the contributions she made, because many people have felt that this A-form of DNA is only found in the laboratory under very non-biological conditions, when DNA is dehydrated or dry.
"Instead, it appears to be a general mechanism in biology for protecting DNA."
