NEW HAVEN, Conn., Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Yale School of Medicine scientists say the human body may detect DNA viruses and RNA viruses by differing mechanisms, as well as detecting invasive bacteria.
Daniel Stetson, a post doctoral fellow and lead author of the study, said all types of viruses can be placed into two categories based on the type of nucleic acids that comprise their genome: viruses made of RNA and viruses made of DNA.
Infected cells sense the presence of foreign nucleic acids as viruses replicate inside them and distill the problem of recognizing a dizzying array of viruses into a relatively simple mechanism for turning on the immune response.
Stetson and Ruslan Medshitov, professor of immunobiology and senior author of the study, compared the innate immune response to intracellular DNA with other virus recognition pathways.
"We found that this novel pathway seems to function differently from all other known nucleic acid sensors," Stetson said. "The unique immune response activated by foreign DNA suggests that DNA viruses and RNA viruses are detected by different mechanisms."
The study is detailed in the current issue of the journal Immunity.
