Human norovirus (HuNoVs) are one of major pathogens cause of foodborne disease, which has results in tens of millions of patient infections and tremendous economic loss each year. Due to lack of cultivable system has hindered the research and development, especially between the HuNoVs and its receptors research. Recently, scientists from Bor S. Luh Food Safety Research Center in collaboration with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) , take advantage of bacterial cell surface display system to successfully anchor capsid protein of HuNoVs to the surface of Escherichia coli (E. coli), magnify roughly a hundred times the size of nanoscale virion, and create micron pseudo HuNoVs for the first time. It is discovered that recombinant HuNoVs can maintain the same antigenicity and receptor binding specificity. This groundbreaking research helps to add new members to the substitutes group of HuNoVs, and write a new chapter for research on HuNoVs receptor. Besides, this opens another door for discussion on pathogenic mechanism, virus-host interactions, as well as to develop novel vaccine for HuNoVs. The research achievement has already applied for China National invention patent (201510679849.0), and published in the journal of Frontiers in Microbiology (IF 4.0, 2014), which is subordinate to Nature Publishing Group.
Source: Xiaowei Yang