A new fruit fly toolkit to understand the impact of SARS-CoV-2 virus in human health

Baylor While the COVID-19 pandemic is under control now, the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to mutate and inflict unprecedented suffering on millions of people in the form of numerous little-understood, lingering symptoms that are collectively termed ‘long-COVID.’ Identifying the underlying causes and therapies for long-COVID symptoms and devising strategies to protect against known and emerging viruses of the coronavirus family remains a top priority in biomedical research. In this study, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital and the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) have taken a step forward to better understand and potentially treat long COVID. The details of how the SARS-CoV-2 virus multiplies are now relatively well-documented, but the specific aspects of how the virus disrupts the function of many different cells and organs remain a mystery. In the current study published in Cell Reports, the researchers developed a comprehensive toolkit called Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) COVID-19 Resources to study the interactions of viral and human proteins. “By harnessing the powerful genetic tools available in the fruit fly model system, we have created a large collection of reagents that will be freely available to all researchers,” said lead corresponding author Dr. Hugo J. Bellen, distinguished service professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor and chair of neurogenetics at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s (Duncan NRI). “We hope these versatile tools will aid in the systematic global analysis of the interactions between the SARS-CoV-2 virus and human cells at the molecular, tissue and organ level and help in the development of new therapeutic strategies to meet current and future health challenges that may arise from SARS-Co-V2 virus and related family members.”