A single mutation in the H5N1 avian influenza virus that affects the pH at which the hemagglutinin surface protein is activated simultaneously reduces its capacity to infect ducks and enhances its capacity to grow in mice according to research published ahead of print today in the Journal of Virology.
"Knowing the factors and markers that govern the efficient growth of a virus in one host species, tissue, or cell culture versus another is of fundamental importance in viral infectious disease," says Charles J. Russell of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, an author on the study. "It is essential for us to identify influenza viruses that have increased potential to jump species, to help us make decisions to cull animals, or quarantine humans." The same knowledge "will help us identify targets to make new drugs that stop the virus [and] engineer vaccines."
Various influenza viruses are spreading around the globe among wild birds, but fortunately, few gain the ability to jump to humans. However, those that do, and are able to then spread efficiently from person to person, cause global epidemics, such as the infamous pandemic of 1918, which infected one fifth and killed an estimated 2.7 percent of the world's population. Occasionally, one of these viruses is exceptionally lethal. For example, H5N1 has killed more than half of the humans it has infected. The specter of such a virus becoming easily transmissible among humans truly frightens public health officials. But understanding the mechanisms of transmission could help microbiologists find ways to mitigate major epidemics.
When influenza viruses infect birds, the hemagglutinin surface protein of the virus is activated by acid in the entry pathway inside the host cell, enabling it to invade that cell. In earlier work, Russell and collaborators showed that a mutant version of the influenza H5N1 virus called K58I that resists acid activation, loses its capacity to
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| Contact: Jim Sliwa jsliwa@asmusa.org 202-942-9297 American Society for Microbiology Source:Eurekalert |
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