GRENOBLE, France, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- European scientists have produced the first 3-D image of a viral protein that allows the avian virus to jump the species barrier from birds to humans.
In 1918, 50 million people died during a worldwide influenza pandemic caused by mutation of a bird-specific strain of the influenza virus. Recently H5N1, another highly infectious avian strain has caused outbreaks of bird flu around the world -- and fears that virus might also mutate to allow human-to-human transmission, causing another catastrophic pandemic.
Specific mutations in a viral protein, the polymerase, contribute to the ability of the bird virus to jump the species barrier. Now scientists from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, the Institute of Structural Biology and the Unit of Virus Host Cell Interactions, all in Grenoble, have produced the first three-dimensional image of part of the key protein.
That accomplishment will allow scientists to investigate the structure and function of the protein and it sheds light on how polymerase mutations contribute to transmission of avian flu to humans.
The study is published in the current issue of the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.
