IIMCB scientists join project on virus-host discovery technology
Dr. Ewelina Małecka and Dr. Stefan Bresson from the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IIMCB) have joined the VirHoX project. Together with colleagues from across Europe, they aim to uncover hidden relationships between viruses and their hosts. The goal of the project is to create an universal virus-host mapping tool which will also support the study of emerging pathogens.
“Viruses infect species from all domains of life and play a central role in ecosystems, biodiversity, and human health. But of the many thousands of catalogued viruses, the vast majority are still classified as 'orphans’, with no known host species,” says Dr. Stefan Bresson, Head of the Laboratory of RNA Viruses at IIMCB.
Linking viruses to their hosts has been a challenge, hindering knowledge and applications. Viruses cannot replicate on their own. Outside host cells, they exist as genetic material enclosed in a protein shell.To multiply, viruses inject their genetic material into a host cell and use the host’s protein-making machinery to produce viral proteins.
“During infection, viruses always rely on cellular ribosomes to translate viral mRNA into protein. By linking viral mRNA to cellular ribosomes, a given virus can, in principle, be matched to its real host species,” says Dr. Ewelina Małecka, Head of the Laboratory of Prokaryotic Gene Regulation at IIMCB. This is the core principle behind the VirHoX technology.
Dr. Małecka and Dr. Bresson will help develop the technology to physically link cellular ribosomal RNA with virus RNA and explore virus translation across diverse host-virus pairs, ensuring it is broadly applicable.
The VirHoX project is coordinated by the University of Padova and involves the Pasteur Institute, the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the University of Trieste, the University of Oslo, FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure, and the industrial partner Eubiome. VirHoX is funded by the European Innovation Council (EIC), with a total budget of €3.5 million.
More information about the project at: https://virhox.eu/
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101186013. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.