Interesting blurb on the flu virus.
Influenza: Our Incompetent Enemy
Quote:
In order to infect a cell, flu viruses need to produce a protein called hemagglutinin, which forms knobs on the virus’s surface and latches onto host cells. Once the virus gets inside the cell, other proteins shut down the host cell’s natural antiviral defenses, help guide the cell to make new genes, and then help package them up. Another protein on the shell of flu viruses, called neuraminidase, opens up the host cell to allow the viruses to escape.
Yewdell and his colleagues infected cells with flu viruses and then surveyed them for these essential proteins. Time and again, they found viruses that lacked at least one of them. They tested out these defective viruses and found they failed to work as a virus should. As they report in an upcoming paper in the Journal of Virology, almost ninety percent are incapable of replicating because they’re missing at least one essential protein.
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http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....mpetent-enemy/