Magnets Improve Understanding of Influenza Drugs

Prof. Cross in front of the 900-megahertz magnet. (Florida State University)

Using powerful magnets [sponsored link] to scan proteins’ atomic structures, scientists at Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee and Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah are close to understanding why some drugs to treat the influenza A virus have become less effective, and how new drugs can replace them. FSU has patented this magnet-screening process for proteins.

The problem isn’t getting any easier — two of the four antiviral drugs used to treat the influenza A virus no longer work. The drugs amantadine and rimantadine have been used to fight the flu since 1969. They worked by preventing an essential protein, called the M2 channel, to function during viral infection of healthy cells. But the M2 channel mutated just enough to allow the virus to resist both drugs.

To study the M2 channel, a team led by Timothy Cross, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at FSU and director of the Magnet Lab’s Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Program used the lab’s 900-megahertz, nuclear magnetic resonance magnet. The 40-ton magnet mapped the protein’s structure by giving it the equivalent of an MRI scan. The detailed images allowed the research groups of Cross and FSU physics professor Huan-Xiang Zhou to chart the tiniest, previously unknown aspects of the protein’s atomic structure.

Cross says FSU has been awarded two patents for this protein-screening process. David Busath, a biophysicist at Brigham Young University, and his colleagues there have begun screening millions of compounds, looking for drugs that will bind to the channel and block its reproductive role.

The research team’s findings appear this week in the journal Science (paid subscription required).