Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin announced on March 11 new findings that could help develop vaccines and antibody therapies for hantaviruses, which are transmitted from rodents to humans and have a death rate approaching 40%. The study, published in the journal Cell, focused on the Andes virus, a hantavirus found in the southwestern United States and other parts of North and South America.
Hantaviruses are considered pathogens of high concern for future pandemics because there are currently no approved vaccines or treatments. Their global presence and high mortality rate make them a significant threat to public health.
The research team produced the highest-resolution blueprint yet of a protein complex that the Andes virus uses to infect host cells. This detailed structure serves as a precursor for vaccine development. Using this information, scientists created a vaccine candidate that caused mice to produce neutralizing antibodies against the virus. “Now that we have a better blueprint of what the virus looks like, we can design effective vaccines and antibody therapies for hantaviruses,” said Jason McLellan, professor of molecular biosciences and Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry at UT Austin, who led the research.
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Welch Foundation, and the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. In 2024, NIH identified several families of viruses—including hantaviruses—as extremely dangerous due to their lack of effective vaccines or treatments. To address these threats, NIH awarded grants through its ReVAMPP program to support research like this study.
To achieve their results, researchers used cryo-electron microscopy to map out three-dimensional structures of the Andes virus’s surface protein complex—a mushroom-shaped Gn-Gc tetramer—at an unprecedented resolution of 2.3 angstroms. This level of detail corrected inaccuracies from previous models and may be applied to studies on other viruses in the future. “People will start to apply this method to many other viruses,” McLellan said.
The team plans further work using artificial intelligence tools to identify stabilizing mutations that could lock viral proteins in place before infection occurs—a key step for developing effective vaccines or therapies.
