Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Wall Street Journal - November 28, 2003
Antonio Regalado, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
The discovery may help guide efforts to create drugs and vaccines for treating severe acute respiratory syndrome, the new infectious illness that killed 774 people and sickened more than 7,000 others this year, mostly in China.
The study, published this week in the journal Nature, found the SARS virus binds to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, or ACE-2, a protein found on the surface of lung, kidney, gastrointestinal tract and heart cells.
SARS appears to use ACE-2 to attach itself to cells, which the virus then hijacks in order to create copies of itself, said Michael Farzan of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who led the research.
The receptor finding underscores the rapid pace of SARS research. It took more than 10 years to reveal how HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, fuses with human cells, partly because it turned out that two receptors were involved.
Some experts cautioned that SARS could also be acting in a similarly complex way.
"Whether this ACE-2 is the sole receptor for the SARS coronavirus is not yet clear. However, the case is compelling that this molecule is important in SARS," said W. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University professor and scientific director of the Northeast Biodefense Center.
SARS is caused by a coronavirus, a germ named for its distinctive crown of spike-like projections. In testing on monkey cells, the virus's spike molecules were found to lock on to ACE-2, but not other molecules, Dr. Farzan and his colleagues found.
Dr. Farzan said a synthetic form of the receptor could be used as a decoy to slow or stop SARS infection. He said his lab would test that theory, and planned to investigate several ACE-2-inhibitor compounds recently created by drug firms looking for new blood-pressure medications.
--Betsy McKay contributed to this article. Write to Antonio Regalado at antonio.regalado@wsj.com
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