On September 8, cell chemical biology, a sub-issue of Cell magazine, published online the research paper of Zhou Xiang, a key laboratory of biomedical polymer materials in the Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, and Zhang Bo, a research group of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It was the first time that the G- quadruplex of Ebola virus RNA could be used as an effective anti-Ebola virus target, providing a new therapeutic strategy for resisting Ebola virus.

The paper is entitled "chemical targeting of a G- quadruple x RNA in the ebola virus gene" (ebola virus l gene g-quadruplex RNA as chemical target). Professor Zhou Xiang, Professor Tian Long (Zhou Xiang's research group) and researcher Zhang Bo are the co-authors of the article. Associate Professor Wang Shaoru, Zhang Qiuyan and Wang Jiaqi are the co-authors of the article. This work is supported by the National Key Basic Research and Development Plan (973 Plan), the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Excellent Medical Academic Leaders Plan of Hubei Province.

Ebola virus is a virulent virus that causes Ebola hemorrhagic fever in humans and primates. Because of its extremely high mortality rate, Ebola virus has been listed as one of the viruses with the most serious harm to human beings by the World Health Organization. Up to now, there is no approved drug or vaccine to treat or prevent Ebola virus disease. This research provides a new direction strategy to resist Ebola virus.

It is pointed out that the structure of G- quadruplex is diverse, so it is still a research hotspot up to now. Its biological functions are mainly reflected in the regulation of the expression of tumor-related genes and the development of ligand molecules based on anti-tumor drugs. Experimental studies have found that the Ebola virus L gene contains high-fidelity guanine-rich sequences and can be folded to form a stable G- quadruplex structure. In addition, researchers have also proved that small molecular compounds specifically targeting the G- quadruplex structure can stabilize the structure, and can effectively inhibit the replication of the Ebola virus microgenome and further inhibit the translation and expression of virus proteins, thus achieving the purpose of resisting the Ebola virus.

Original Article Link：http://www.cell.com/cell-chemical-biology/fulltext/S2451-9456(16)30285-9