Influenza is able to mask itself, to ensure that the virus is not initially detected by our immune system. This is the result of brand-new research from Aarhus University. The researchers behind the study chance that the discovery can easily be used to produce much better treatment versus influenza and chronic inflammation conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis.
Some years ago researchers found that the immune system can easily currently monitor viruses and alert the physique once a virus enters into human cells to multiply. Yet brand-new research now reveals that the influenza virus cheats the mechanism and is thus able to circumvent the body’s advanced defence system.
“The virus consists of a healthy protein that masks the virus entering the cell. In this way, the influenza virus can easily spread much more easily prior to the immune system recognises that it is a virus and attempts to fight it,” says Associate Professor Christian Holm from the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University.
Together along with Professor Søren R. Paludan, he has actually headed the research project, which has actually likewise comprised contributions from various other researchers at Aarhus University and from a lot of American universities. Their discovery has actually recently been published in the scientific diary Nature Communications.
Impairs defence versus viruses in general
The influenza virus has actually made this weapon versus the immune system through evolution. The researchers found the mechanism by giving cells in the laboratory an evolutionarily conserved influenza virus protein. The result was that the cells became poorer at defending themselves versus the 2 influenza viruses and various other sorts of viruses.
“This indicates that the recognition mechanism in the immune system that the influenza virus evades is generally essential for the body’s ability to defend itself versus viruses. It is therefore essential simple research expertise for us. The much more expertise we have actually concerning why a virus comes to be dangerous, the much easier it is to produce treatments,” explains Associate Professor Christian Holm.
Suppressed immune system can easily likewise be an advantage
The little healthy protein that is able to mask the influenza virus from the immune system is not just interesting in relation to combating influenza. It might be feasible to usage it to combat autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, also as the relatively rare illness lupus, which to a wonderful extent affects young women. In these diseases, the immune system attacks healthy and balanced cells and tissues – though the reasons for this are unknown – and causes chronic inflammation.
“The protein’s immunosuppressant effect can easily possibly be used to produce much better treatments for these sorts of diseases, where the immune system is chronically overactive. By suppressing the immune system’s reaction, the symptoms can easily be reduced. The outcomes of our research can easily likewise be used to examine this in much more detail,” says Christian Holm.
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About the research project
- The project was carried out by the Aarhus Research Focus for Innate Immunology in collaboration along with researchers from the USA and from Science and Technology at Aarhus University, including Senior Researcher Mogens Duch and Associate Professor Rune Hartmann.
- The project is financed by the Danish Council for Independent Research’s Sapere Aude programme (DFF–Research Talents), The Novo Nordisk Foundation, The Lundbeck Foundation, Aase and Ejnar Danielsen’s Foundation, The Danish Rheumatism Association, Oda and Hans Svenningsen’s Foundation and the Foundation for the Promotion of the Medical Sciences.
Read more
Read the scientific write-up “Influenza A virus targets a cGAS-independent STING pathway that controls enveloped RNA viruses” in Nature Communications.
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from Influenza – NewsBlog http://ift.tt/1Q90g7l
