Viruses employ specific membrane fusion proteins.
Under fusion-inducing conditions, HA changes conformation and exposes its apolar fusion peptides. Our continuing studies focus on refining our model for HA-mediated fusion and testing whether essential features of this model apply to retroviral fusion proteins. ADAMs have been implicated in diverse processes such as fertilization, myogenesis, neurogenesis, and inflammatory reactions. Our major current goals are to test whether ADAM disintegrin domains bind to integrins and to test whether any ADAMs truly function as membrane fusion proteins. In collaboration with Dr. Douglas DeSimone, we are also beginning to explore the role of ADAMs in early development.