Publications by authors named "D Desmecht"
In a world facing significant climate changes, arboviruses are expanding into new regions. In recent decades, Western Europe has experienced multiple outbreaks of epizootic arboviruses in ruminants, including the Schmallenberg virus. This virus emerged in 2011 and spread rapidly across the continent, causing severe malformations in the central nervous systems of ruminant fetuses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe recombinant expression and purification of viral proteins are a key component in the study of the immune response of viruses, as well as the creation of diagnostic techniques for the detection of viruses. For structurally simple proteins, one commonly used technique is the production of recombinant proteins in bacterial expression systems, which enable the large-scale synthesis and purification of recombinant viral proteins. In this technique, the cDNA encoding for a viral protein is cloned into a bacterial expression vector (with an appropriate purification tag), produced in a modified bacterial culture, and optimized for maximum protein production in a minimal amount of time.
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- A dendritic polymer known as 2D-SupraPol inhibits SARS-CoV-2 through an irreversible (virucidal) mechanism only when it is self-assembled, making it more effective than its monomeric forms that allow the virus to regain infectivity.
- In laboratory and animal tests, 2D-SupraPol demonstrated a very low half-inhibitory concentration (IC 30 nM) and effective results in reducing virus activity in a Syrian hamster model.
- The size and structure of 2D-SupraPol can be modified by changing pH levels, and it is proposed as a potential prophylactic nasal spray to prevent the virus from interacting with the respiratory tract.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disabling disease of the central nervous system affecting over 2.5 million people worldwide. Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus-induced demyelinating disease (TMEV-IDD) is a murine model that reproduces the progressive form of MS and serves as a reference model for studying virus-induced demyelination.
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- Viruses typically invade cells by attaching to specific molecules on the cell surface, prompting the development of broad-spectrum multivalent entry inhibitors (MEIs) that can mimic these binding sites.
- To enhance the effectiveness of MEIs, modifications with hydrophobic arms create irreversible inhibition, which maintains efficacy even when diluted, though initial MEIs showed limited reversible inhibition against SARS-CoV-2.
- Through systematic testing, researchers identified effective small molecules that achieve irreversible inhibition against various viruses, demonstrating success in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection in a hamster model using both intranasal and aerosol methods.