H5N1 and Non-Structural Protein
Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent for Reuters writes about a possible breakthrough in our understanding of the H5N1 avian flu virus.
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The finding, published in the journal Science, may provide a way to identify the more dangerous viruses and may also help companies trying to make better flu drugs, said St. Jude’s Clayton Naeve.
“We documented a clear difference between bird viruses and human viruses. You need much more work to demonstrate this actually contributes to virulence in nature,” Naeve said in an interview.
Naeve and his colleagues have been working to sequence the genomes of all known influenza viruses. No one has done this, even though flu viruses have just eight genes and are relatively simple organisms, the researchers said.
“This is information we expect will be very important in understanding the attributes of this virus — how it will cross from birds to humans. We are releasing this data so that other investigators worldwide can mine it for information,” he said.
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H5N1 does not yet pass easily from person to person but experts fear it will mutate into a form that does so, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions or tens of millions.
One factor will be just what genetic changes the virus makes, and no one can predict what they will be. But Naeve’s team may have identified two proteins to watch.
They are called NS1 and NS2, for non-structural protein, and they are only made once the virus has infected a cell.
The avian versions seem to allow the virus to do much more damage to a cell than the human versions of NS, Naeve said.