Caterpillar protein combat measles virus, herpes and rubella.
Butantan Institute (São Paulo, Brazil) researchers have identified proteins in the 'blood' of caterpillars that have stunning effects on various viruses, including measles.
We still don't know the exact chemical composition of this substance. However, she has shown to have unequivocal action: become 2 thousand times smaller picorna virus replication (relative of the polio virus) and 750 times less the measles virus, besides having neutralized the H1N1 influenza virus, said Ronaldo Zucatelli Mendonça, responsible for research.
The team of Mendonça found high-power antiviral substances in family Megalopygidae caterpillars.
It has long been produced antiviral substances from organisms and animal or vegetable products, such as sea urchin and propolis. But little from insects, and even less in caterpillars, he said.
The caterpillars we studied are among the most poisonous caterpillars known - its bristles release poison that can lead to death.
Our choice for these caterpillars was due to the accumulation of hundreds of carcasses of these insects in the Instituto Butantan, left over after the withdrawal of the poison for the production of serum against burns. After these carcasses are removed, we extracted from the haemolymph the gene coding of defensive substances.
Haemolymph is the fluid that exerts the function of blood in insects. In general, in the haemolymph are the substances that these animals have to fight viruses, bacteria and fungi.
The study with Megalopygidae continues a previous search, in which the team isolated and purified a protein in another caterpillar, the family Saturniidae, the Lonomia obliqua.
The protein found in the Lonomia became the replication of herpes virus 1 million times smaller and rubella virus replication, 10 thousand times smaller.
These two surveys, about the Lonomia and about the caterpillars of the family Megalopygidae, have focused on substances that present two specific properties: apoptotic and antiviral action. The first promotes apoptosis (programmed cell death or triggered to eliminate quickly unneeded or damaged cells), a process important in the mechanism for cancer control.
The current focus of research with caterpillars Megalopygidae is its antiviral action.
The proteins under study are produced by recombinant DNA technology. The protein encoding gene is extracted from the haemolymph, cloned in a baculovirus (virus that attacks insects). Then, is replicated in insect cells, which, in turn, produce defense proteins (so-called recombinant proteins) in large quantities.
The main advantage in producing recombinant protein is that it makes possible the extraction of the substance of simplest way and on a larger scale, said Mendonça. Before reaching the industry, however, you need to check action in organisms, in in vivo tests, and evaluate their economic viability
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