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Flu virus, measles comparison inspires vaccine design

The goal of researchers was to discover genetic differences between flu and measles in order to design vaccines that are effective against viruses which survive frequent change.

By Stephen Feller

NEW YORK, May 22 (UPI) -- Researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital used similarities in the measles and flu viruses to discover a difference between them that may help in designing future vaccines.

Vaccines for both measles and flu already exist, however the flu vaccine must be updated because of the virus's ability to change and adapt in order to invade cells in the human body. The goal of researchers was to find genes in each virus that cannot survive changes.

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By comparing two similar viruses which attack the body in similar ways through the lungs, researchers confirmed that the measles virus is much less open to evolutionary change by using an experimental technique called insertional mutagenesis to change the genes of each virus.

"Our team used the measles virus to test a tool that offers a new way to measure the resistance of key viral genes, and related proteins, to change," said Nicholas Heaton, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in a press release. "It's vital to quickly determine the parts of a virus so vital to its survival that it can't randomly change them because they often make the best vaccine components."

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The measles virus requires a specific protein receptor to attach to, whereas the flu virus needs only one of the simple sugar structures found on the surfaces of human cells. This knowledge, Heaton said, will inform future study of the ways viral evolution challenges the designers of vaccines.

"In theory, how different viruses evolved to attach to target cells may be a major factor driving their genetic rigidity, or flexibility, which influences the ability to tolerate the random genetic changes that are happening all the time," Heaton said. "Both the flu and measles have historically been very successful invaders of human cells, so both rigidity and constant change genetic change have conferred value. Exactly why tradeoffs are made in viral evolution is very interesting, and the subject of ongoing studies."

The study is published in Cell Reports.

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