Progress in Reverse Against New Swine Flu
Strain By Luis
Pons
February 11, 2004
Sometimes it's best to take a step backward in the name of
progress. That's what scientists at the Agricultural Research Service's
National Animal Disease Center in
Ames, Iowa, did in efforts to combat a strain of swine influenza that is
relatively new to the United States.
Veterinary medical officers Juergen Richt and Kelly Lager of the
center's Virus
and Prion Diseases of Livestock Research Unit used a reverse genetics
process to actually create new flu viruses whose individual components could be
explored. It is hoped these components can in turn become the targets of
vaccines.
The influenza that has spurred this research--a swine flu type
that contains gene segments from birds and humans, as well as from pigs--has
spread throughout North America since being detected in 1998.
Swine influenza presents a special challenge to genetics
researchers because its virus stores its information in RNA, which is more
susceptible to mutation and allows viruses to evolve far more rapidly than in
DNA. Because of this, it is sometimes hard for an infected host to develop
lasting immunity.
Since manipulations commonly done on DNA cannot be performed
with RNA, reverse genetics is used to perform a procedure called reverse
transcription, in which RNA viruses' genetic material is turned into a DNA
state where modifications can be easily introduced. When the DNA is converted
back into RNA, these modifications occur in the genome of the RNA virus as
well.
Through this approach, the researchers in collaboration with
scientists from Iowa State University,
the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New
York and St. Jude Children's Research
Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. used cloned DNA to generate swine influenza
viruses.
Read more
about this research in the
February issue of
Agricultural Research magazine.
ARS is the
U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief
scientific research agency. |
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