Specialists from the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Conicet) revealed principles to address the search for new drug candidates against bronchiolitis and other infections, it was reported this Tuesday. The researchers unraveled the role of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) replication proteins in the formation of certain structures that viruses create inside cells to self-perpetuate and infect, called "viral factories." The finding provides a new therapeutic edge for RSV and, potentially, other viral pathogens that use the same mechanism, such as those that cause measles, Covid-19 and Ebola, Conicet reported in a statement. RSV consists of a handful of genes that produce the proteins necessary for its replication and the assembly of its particle. Once it infects a cell, it begins to produce them and they accumulate until, at a certain moment, they condense into liquid structures that resemble droplets, the "viral factories", where their genome is replicated. In an article published in the Journal of Molecular Biology (JMB), the group from the Institute of Biochemical Research of Buenos Aires (IIBBA), with the biotechnologist and doctor in Biochemistry, Mariano Salgueiro, determined that one of the key proteins of viral replication , called phosphoprotein, is the agent that nucleates the formation of those structures observed in vitro as droplets, and that interacts with the rest of the proteins. While in another work led by the biologist and Conicet doctoral fellow, Araceli Visentin, in the journal Viruses, the formation of the condensates was reconstructed under controlled conditions and the participation of another of the proteins (called M2-1) could be determined. , which accelerates the RNA synthesis machinery as a modulator of viral factories. "It was also described how this protein forms condensates with the RNA, which would be an Achilles heel for the virus since an attempt could be made to intercept this formation as a way to prevent it from replicating," highlighted Gonzalo Prat Gay, also head of the Laboratory. of Structure-Function and Protein Engineering at the Leloir Institute Foundation. RSV belongs to a family of viruses that includes severe human pathogens such as measles, rabies, Ebola, parainfluenza and metapneumovirus, among others.