Harnessing poxviral know-how for anti-cytokine therapies

Abstract

Poxviruses have evolved efficient proteins that bind mammalian cytokines and chemokines to suppress host immunity. HerePontejoet al.examine in detail how one such poxviral protein,CrmD, that has activity against both mammalian tumor necrosisfactor and chemokines, interacts with its host targets. Theyapply their findings to refine a human anti-cytokine therapeuticand increase its specificity, providing an elegant example of thebenefits of mining viral proteins for therapeutically useful infor-mation