Virology Journal BioMed Central Research Open Access Inhibition of Henipavirus fusion and infection by heptad-derived peptides of the Nipah virus fusion glycoprotein Katharine N Bossart†2, Bruce A Mungall†1, Gary Crameri1, Lin-Fa Wang1, Bryan T Eaton1 and Christopher C Broder*2 Address: 1CSIRO Livestock Industries, Australian Animal Health Laboratory, Geelong, Victoria 3220, Australia and 2Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA Email: Katharine N Bossart -
[email protected]; Bruce A Mungall -
[email protected]; Gary Crameri -
[email protected]; Lin-Fa Wang -
[email protected]; Bryan T Eaton -
[email protected]; Christopher C Broder* -
[email protected] * Corresponding author †Equal contributors Published: 18 July 2005 Received: 24 May 2005 Accepted: 18 July 2005 Virology Journal 2005, 2:57 doi:10.1186/1743-422X-2-57 This article is available from: http://www.virologyj.com/content/2/1/57 © 2005 Bossart et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ParamyxovirusHendra virusNipah virusenvelope glycoproteinfusioninfectioninhibitionantiviral therapies Abstract Background: The recent emergence of four new members of the paramyxovirus family has heightened the awareness of and re-energized research on new and emerging diseases. In particular, the high mortality and person to person transmission associated with the most recent Nipah virus outbreaks, as well as the very recent re-emergence of Hendra virus, has confirmed the importance of developing effective therapeutic interventions.