Research Description

The Peeples’ lab is working to understand respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the most prominent cause of hospitalization for children. Starting with “progenitor” cells that they isolate from airways, they develop mucus-producing and cilia-waving cells. The RSV attachment glycoprotein (G) attaches RSV to ciliated cells and they have identified a virus receptor on these cells. After attaching to the cell, the viral membrane fuses with the target cell membrane, spilling the viral genome into the cell to initiate infection. They are studying both the attachment by the G protein and the fusion, driven by the RSV fusion (F) protein. F dramatically refolds to reach out to the cell membrane, grab it, and continuing to refold, pulling the two membranes together and causing them to fuse. They are working to identify the “trigger” point on the RSV F protein and what interaction initiates this refolding. In collaboration with six other labs, they are developing novel live attenuated vaccine candidates for RSV, the most common cause of hospitalization for young children in the US. They recently published their first candidate RSV vaccine, finding that a low dose of vaccine efficiently induced antibodies and was highly protective in animals.