International research networks in viral structural proteomics: again, lessons from SARS

Abstract

Emerging and re-emerging pathogens and bioterror threats require an organized and coherent response from the worldwide research community to maximize available resources and competencies with the primary goals to understand the pathogen and enable intervention. In 2001, the Structural Proteomics In Europe (SPINE) project prototyped the pan-viral structural genomic approach, and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 accelerated the concept of structural characterization of all proteins from a viral proteome and the interaction with their host partners. Following that approach, in 2004 the center for Functional and Structural Proteomics for SARS-CoV related proteins was initiated as part of the US NIH NIAID proteomics resource centers. Across worldwide efforts in Asia, Europe and America, the international research teams working on SARS-CoV have now determined experimental structural information for 45% of the SARS-CoV proteins and 53% of all its soluble proteins. This data is fully available to the scientific community and is providing an unprecedented level of insight to this class of RNA viruses. The efforts and results by the international scientific community to the SARS outbreak are serving as an example and roadmap of a rapid response using modern research methods.

Fig. 1

A schematic depicting the progress made in structural characterization of the SARS-CoV proteome. The top two panels show the mature proteins that emerge from the replicase polyprotein while the bottom panel shows the ORFs for structural and accessory proteins. The individual domains of nsp3 derived by in silico analysis are shown in the inset. Those proteins whose structures have been described in the literature are shown as ribbon diagrams that are color coded from the N- (red) to the C-terminus (blue).