Researchers have identified new roles for a protein long known to protect against severe flu infection – among them, raising the minimum number of viral particles needed to cause sickness.
Ohio State UniversityNov 15 2024
IFITM3 deficiency is not rare: About 20% of Chinese people and 4% of people of European ancestry have genetic mutations that disable the immune system's production of the protein.Jacob Yount, senior study author, professor of microbial infection and immunity in Ohio State's College of Medicine Yount has studied flu and this protein for years, and his lab developed a mouse model lacking the gene that codes for IFITM3 – making the animals highly susceptible to flu.
"IFITM3 has been known to prevent severity of infection, but we're newly showing that it's also controlling how much virus it takes initially to cause infection," Yount said. "And I think that's one of the most fundamental textbook-level findings ever to come out of my lab." The team then used lab techniques to mimic repeated transmission of a human-origin virus in mice, testing the protein's role in the pace of mutations that lead to interspecies adaptation. Experiments showed that flu viruses were able to replicate more rapidly and induce higher levels of inflammation in mice deficient in IFITM3 compared to normal mice.
Gene Genetic H5N1 Immune Response Immune System Immunity Inflammation Influenza OCT Pandemic Protein Research Swine Flu Virus
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