Genetic factors behind surviving or dying from Ebola shown in mouse study
Posted: October 30, 2014 at 7:53 pm
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2014
Contact: Leila Gray leilag@uw.edu 206-685-0381 University of Washington Health Sciences/UW Medicine
A newly developed mouse model suggests that genetic factors are behind the mild-to-deadly range of reactions to the Ebola virus.
People exposed to Ebola vary in how the virus affects them. Some completely resist the disease, others suffer moderate to severe illness and recover, while those who are most susceptible succumb to bleeding, organ failure and shock.
In earlier studies of populations of people who have contracted Ebola, these differences are not related to any specific changes in the Ebola virus itself that made it more or less dangerous; instead, the body's attempts to fight infection seems to determine disease severity.
In the Oct. 30 edition of Science, scientists describe strains of laboratory mice bred to test the role of an individual's genetic makeup in the course of Ebola disease. Systems biologists and virologists Angela Rasmussen and Michael Katze from the Katze Laboratory at the University of Washington Department of Microbiology led the study in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health's Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Research on Ebola prevention and treatment has been hindered by the lack of a mouse model that replicates the main characteristics of human Ebola hemorrhagic fever. The researchers had originally obtained this genetically diverse group of inbred laboratory mice to study locations on mouse genomes associated with influenza severity.
The research was conducted in a highly secure, state-of-the-art biocontainment safety level 4 laboratory in Hamilton, Mont. The scientists examined mice that they infected with a mouse form of the same species of Ebola virus causing the 2014 West Africa outbreak. The study was done in full compliance with federal, state, and local safety and biosecurity regulations. This type of virus has been used several times before in research studies. Nothing was done to change the virus.
Interestingly, conventional laboratory mice previously infected with this virus died, but did not develop symptoms of Ebola hemorrhagic fever.
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Genetic factors behind surviving or dying from Ebola shown in mouse study