COVID-19, a new coronavirus, has been ravaging the world for a year and a half, and there is still no hope that it will ever be quelled, and more effective treatments are needed to save it. Now researchers at the University of Chicago have invented an artificial nanoparticle that lures the virus in, captures it, and then turns it over to the body’s immune system to destroy it, so the researchers call it “Nanotraps.
The study was led by Professor Jun Huang of the University of Chicago-Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (Jun Huang), who said, “Since the pandemic. Our research team has envisioned the possibility of creating a nanoparticle similar to an artificial antibody, starting with a petri dish, and now proving that nanotraps can have an effect. We are excited about their potential.”
Postdoctoral researcher Min Chen and graduate student Jill Rosenberg first dissected the mechanism by which the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) binds to cells, and it turns out that the virus has a stinger on its surface called the ACE2 receptor protein that can break through the surface of human cells and then penetrate into them to replicate.
Knowing the “weapon” of the virus, they “did unto others what they had done unto them” by creating a feature that attracts the virus to bind, i.e., high-density ACE2 protein nanoparticles, and then designing the same nanoparticles to attract the antibody on the same nanoparticle.
As a result, the virus will attach to the nanoparticles and the nanoparticles will call the antibodies to come and sweep the virus (this is like the “undercover cop” and the criminal appearing at the scene of the crime, but the “undercover cop” immediately notifies the other cops to come and arrest them).
The nanoparticles are about 500 nanometers in diameter, which is a much smaller size than a cell. The material is made of polymers and phospholipids approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), so it will not harm humans.
The researchers have used mice to achieve this and found no toxicity of the artificial nanomaterial. They then tested nanocapture first with a weakened pseudovirus (a virus that has lost its ability to replicate) and found that the nanoparticles really did completely stop the pseudovirus from invading cellular tissue.
Once the pseudovirus bound to the nanoparticles (which took about 10 minutes), the nanoparticles notified macrophages (powerful players in immune cells) to come and engulf and degrade the nanotrap. According to laboratory performance, the nanoparticles are cleared and degraded within 48 hours.
The researchers’ next step was to work with Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne National Laboratory) to use nanotraps against live viruses, and the results were also successful and 10 times more rapid than several existing virus inhibitors.
Next, the researchers will continue to test more closely to the real situation to make sure it can deal with the new coronavirus.
The researchers said that the nanoparticle delivery, neither oral nor administered, but the use of intranasal spray, directly in the respiratory system, so that the fastest results and most directly against the virus.
If this set of technologies is feasible, perhaps nanoparticle therapy can become a potent drug for other respiratory diseases, or even as a vaccine.
The technical paper was published in the April 27 issue of the journal Matter.
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