Computational Models for Trapping Ebola Virus Using Engineered Bacteria

Abstract

The outbreak of Ebola virus in recent years has resulted in numerous research initiatives to seek new solutions to contain the virus. A number of approaches that have been investigated include new vaccines to boost the immune system. An alternative post-exposure treatment is presented in this paper. The proposed approach for clearing Ebola virus can be developed through a microfluidic attenuator, which contains the engineered bacteria that traps Ebola flowing through the blood onto its membrane. The paper presents the analysis of the chemical binding force between the virus and a genetically engineered bacterium considering the opposing forces acting on the attachment point, including hydrodynamic tension and drag force. To test the efficacy of the technique, simulations of bacterial motility within a confined area to trap the virus were performed. More than 60% of the displaced virus could be collected within 15 minutes. While the proposed approach currently focuses on in vitro environments for trapping the virus, the system can be further developed into the future for treatment whereby blood can be cycled out of the body into a microfluidic device that contains the engineered bacteria to trap viruses.

6G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications Systems

“…A critical step for treatment is the antiviral intervention, which blocks the intracellular signaling pathways to prevent influenza viruses from replication. A reported solution preventing the virus from replication is to use engineered bacteria (i.e., Escherichia coli) to trap the Ebola virus [183]. In the reported work, the blood of a patient with the Ebola virus infection is transmitted to a microfluidic chamber tube outside the body which contains the engineered bacteria.…”

“…In the reported work, the blood of a patient with the Ebola virus infection is transmitted to a microfluidic chamber tube outside the body which contains the engineered bacteria. The scattered bacteria can then achieve protein binding with the Ebola virus using chemical bind force and synthetic protein binding receptors [183].…”

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“…Many approaches do consider k c in the steadystate, but we like to draw attention by the community that it can have non-linear relationships with the infected humans, so it should also be associated with different disease stages over time that is bounded by transition probabilities of stage changes (severe stage to mild, and vice versa). Moreover, as shown in both (20) and (21), that non-linearities do exist, for example, the relationship V r (t) P v (t) is added to the model but is currently non-existing in the literature. The initial virus concentration V 0 can be directly obtained from values in Table I.…”

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“…The simulated virus binding process is based on the model previously reported in [13]. A chemical reaction occurs whenever the virus proteins, i.e.…”

“…Strong attachment is a design requirement to ensure that the virus will remain bound to the viral detector, and it will be dependent on the concentration of viral proteins and host receptors on the adhesive strips, which depends on the type of IRS discussed in Section III (b). These concentrations are estimated using the ligands, receptors, virus and viral detector dimensions found in [13].…”