Proteins on the skin of influenza A viruses are key to breaching our our bodies’ mucus boundaries
Kateryna Kon/Science Picture Library
Earlier than viruses can infect cells, they need to first get to them, usually by traversing layers of the physique’s protecting mucus. Understanding how evolution optimised the influenza A virus for this slimy activity may assist us create new antiviral medicine.
In the event you simply dropped an influenza A virus into mucus, pure diffusion would by no means carry it to cells quick sufficient to trigger an an infection, says Siddhansh Agarwal on the College of California, Berkeley. Influenza A viruses – the one influenza…
