The treatment of worm parasites will be upgraded thanks to a discovery by researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. The work of biology Prof. Benjamin Podbilewicz and his colleagues can be implemented immediately to develop the treatment, he says, after discovering proteins that merge any two animal cells – even a virus – with mammalian cells.

Podbilewicz and his colleagues discovered a family of genes in many organisms that normally merge cells to form body organs. Transfer of such genes to mammalian cells is enough to fuse any two cells, even those that do not naturally fuse. An engineered pseudo-virus was successfully targeted with this technology to infect animal cells. This discovery, which recently appeared in Science, is aimed at treating parasites not only in plants and cattle but also in humans.

The ability of two or more cells to fuse into one is vital for the initial development of an embryo by fusing the sperm and ovum, and for the development of body organs such asthe skeleton, muscles and placenta. Despite the importance of the fusion process for human health and reproduction, the cell fusion mechanism is still unknown. Yet certain enveloped viruses use similar strategies, which have been deciphered in detail, to fuse and infect body cells of their host such as flu and the HIV virus.

These processes are being unraveled in Podbilewicz’s lab, as critical proteins mediating the process in animals have now been identified for the first time and their operating mechanism characterized at the molecular level.

In the just-published research, his doctoral student Ori Avinoam discovered that this fusion family (“FF”) of genes – initially discovered by their lab in common C. elegans worms – also exists in other organisms, and that when transferred to mammalian cells, are enough to force any two cells to fuse.

“In the beginning we thought we had discovered a gene family that exists only in nematode worms,” says Podbilewicz. “We were surprised to discover that these genes also exist in other organisms, which makes them or others similar to them the leading candidates for being responsible for the fusion process between cells in all kingdoms of life.”

In the future, they conclude, this discovery will enable scientists to understand how cells in the human body fuse, and then help treat diseases stemming from defects in the fusion process that are liable to cause serious problems in fertility and the musculoskeletal system.

Ori Avinoam

	Podbilewicz, B., Leikina, E., Sapir, A., Valansi, C., Suissa, M., Shemer, G. and Chernomordik, L. V. (2006). The C. elegans developmental fusogen EFF-1 mediates homotypic fusion in heterologous cells and in vivo. Dev Cell 11, 471-81.
	Shemer, G., Suissa, M., Kolotuev, I., Nguyen, K. C., Hall, D. H. and Podbilewicz, B. (2004). EFF-1 is sufficient to initiate and execute tissue-specific cell fusion in C. elegans. Curr Biol 14, 1587-91.
	Mohler, W. A., Shemer, G., del Campo, J. J., Valansi, C., Opoku-Serebuoh, E., Scranton, V., Assaf, N., White, J. G. and Podbilewicz, B. (2002). The type I membrane protein EFF-1 is essential for developmental cell fusion. Dev Cell 2, 355-62.