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US-Japanese Study Finds Genes for 1918 'Spanish Flu' Pandemic
Taubenberger was able to isolate the eight genes of the 1918 virus by the technique of inverse genetics.
Kawaoka's team blended genetic elements from the 1918 flu virus with those of current flu pathogens, generating viruses that carried different genetical combinations.
Tested on ferrets and mice, most of the combined viruses infected the upper respiratory tract of the laboratory animals but did not cause pneumonia.
One exception, however, included a complex of three genes that, acting in concert with another key gene, allowed the virus to efficiently colonize lung cells and make RNA polymerase, a protein necessary for the virus to reproduce.
The other key gene makes hemagglutinin, a protein found on the surface of the virus and that confers on viral particles the ability to attach to host cells.
The RNA polymerase is used to make copies of the virus once it has entered a host cell. The role of hemagglutinin is to help the virus gain access to cells, Kawaoka said.
Other co-authors of the study include Shinji Watanabe, Jin Hyun Kim and Masato Hatta, also of UW-Madison, and Kyoko Shinya of Kobe University, in Japan.
The work was funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and by grants-in-aid from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan.
Source-AFP
SRM
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