Researchers at EMBL Hamburg, working with scientists at the Leibniz Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology (FMP), have created a detailed map of how influenza A changes infected human cells, according to ScienceDaily.
The team used a specialized workflow that let them observe protein interactions inside intact cells instead of relying only on broken-apart samples. That approach allowed them to capture brief or location-specific contacts that can be missed by older methods.
The study is the first to map direct influenza-human protein contacts on a large scale inside intact infected cells. By combining cross-linking mass spectrometry with computational modeling, the researchers were also able to estimate how the viral and human proteins may fit together.
According to the report, the findings point to two ways influenza A may take control of a cell. One involves hemagglutinin and the host proteins that help fold and process it, while the other involves paraspeckles in the cell nucleus, which the virus appears to cause to dissolve.
The researchers said the work could help inform future flu vaccines and antiviral drugs by identifying important virus-host interactions and possible targets for treatment.
