Comments on: Zinc inhibits rhinovirus replication

By: JST Books

JST Books — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 06:36:00 +0000

Zinc is needed for the metabolism of nucleic acids and the synthesis of proteins. It is an integral part of the human DNA for cell division and synthesis. Zinc is anti-bacterial, anti-viral and is found in all the body fluids, including the moisture in the eyes, lungs, nose, urine, and saliva. liquid zinc

By: Rhinovirus and zinc part 5: Magnesium is not the culprit

Rhinovirus and zinc part 5: Magnesium is not the culprit — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:37:28 +0000

[...] toxic to HeLa cells. I have found that 0.1 mM ZnCl2 does inhibit rhinovirus plaque formation but not sufficiently to be able to select resistant mutants. In today’s set of experiments I asked whether the [...]

By: Zinc and rhinovirus replication

Zinc and rhinovirus replication — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:28:15 +0000

[...] I began experiments to understand how zinc inhibits rhinovirus replication, and I promised to document my findings on the pages of this blog. Here are the results of the [...]

By: migmuz

migmuz — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:17:13 +0000

At the molecular level it would be quite interesting to probe the mechanism of action and where zinc ions are going and binding. These days we have nice tools to examine the speciation of transition metals in their interactions with biological systems. For instance, we could start by finding out the group of proteins or receptors that Zn is binding to by using an ICP-MS system as a detector (interfaced) with your HPLC protein separation system. This will tell us where Zn is in the chromatographic profile and we will follow up with LC/MS-MS or LC/Q-TOF analysis to identify the proteins. For Zinc the detection limit of an ICP-MS system is less than 1ppt; probably low enough for mechanist studies. I would love to try it!

By: migmuz

migmuz — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:17:13 +0000

By: profvrr

profvrr — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:33:19 +0000

“Kinetic” means 'pertaining to motion'. In this case, it refers to adding zinc at different times after infection.

By: ifnpacman

ifnpacman — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:49:51 +0000

sorry for this french neologism, it was kinetic !

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:53:23 +0000

Just a WAG but I would look for protease inhibition by Zn++. Both 2A and 3C are cysteine proteases (iirc) so they would be my first guess as the target for Zn++ inhibition of rhinovirus replication. But, I would be surprised if that had not already been done!

By: jim12311

jim12311 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:45:23 +0000

What's a “cinetic”?

By: profvrr

profvrr — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:58:42 +0000

I don't want to use zinc to inhibit rhinoviruses. The goal is to find how how zinc works, then design molecules that mimic what zinc does without the side effects.

By: MsMargot

MsMargot — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:50:20 +0000

Very interesting. I imagine that as a researcher your first goal is to find out how the zinc works, but I do have a question that I hope you don't mind my asking .
What about the June 2009 FDA's report that Zicam's zinc nasal spray has been implicated in people losing their sense of smell? Do you already know how this side effect can be circumvented and avoided?

By: Alan Dove

Alan Dove — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:49:12 +0000

I'm just tickled to hear that you're back in the lab doing experiments. Congratulations!

Oh, and of course I'd do pretty much what others have already suggested here: a time-course of infection, adding the zinc at different points to see when the block occurs, plus isolation of zinc-resistant mutants. After the initial time-course results, it might also be interesting to see if you can reverse the block by chelating the zinc, which would reveal whether zinc inhibition really inactivates the virus or merely “pauses” its cycle. I might also see if other metals inhibit the virus's growth.

By: ifnpacman

ifnpacman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:49:01 +0000

Pretreat the cells with ZnCl2 in order to mimic a prophylactic treatment.
Perform a cinetic of adding ZnCl2 “x” time after infection.
Perform a dose ranging in order to optimise ZnCl2 antiviral effect and cell toxicity.
Identify which step of virus life cycle is affected by ZnCl2.
Thanks to having performed this experiment and share results with us.

By: Cheri

Cheri — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:56:50 +0000

Isolate virus from the plaques, grow it up and sequence.

By: Tweets that mention Zinc inhibits rhinovirus replication -- Topsy.com

Tweets that mention Zinc inhibits rhinovirus replication -- Topsy.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:55:30 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vincent Racaniello, FluTrackers.com, Chris Upton, I A, matt matt and others. matt matt said: RT@cupton1 RT @profvrr: Profvrr does an experiment: zinc inhibits rhinovirus replication http://bit.ly/OAd4z at virology blog [...]

By: Jim B

Jim B — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:25:46 +0000

Insert zinc-plated nasal stents and walk amongst crowds with impunity?

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:43:10 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by profvrr: Profvrr does an experiment: zinc inhibits rhinovirus replication http://bit.ly/OAd4z at virology blog…

By: Guin

Guin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:45:41 +0000

Repeat the same experiment using different kinds of virus and see whether you'll observe a similar effect? (distinguish between rhinovirus-specific factor vs. host factor)