virus

Influenza virus attachment to cells: role of different sialic acids

As we discussed previously, attachment of all influenza A virus strains to cells requires sialic acids. However, there are a number of chemically different forms of sialic acids, and influenza virus strains vary in their affinity for them. These differences may determine which animal species can be infected. In the example shown below, sialic acid …

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Nucleotide sequences of influenza A/Mexico/2009 (H1N1) viruses available

Here at virology blog we have been speculating for a week why sequences of the Mexican influenza virus isolates have not been available. Today we received a comment from Dr. Ruben Donis, who we quoted in a previous post. Dr. Donis wrote: Thank you for the nice vignette about the ScienceInsider interview. I would like to …

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Influenza virus attachment to cells

We’ve briefly considered the structure of influenza virions and how the viral RNAs can encode one or more proteins. Now we’ll consider how influenza viruses multiply. Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites: they cannot reproduce outside of a cell. The production of new infectious particles must take place within a cell. Upon entering cells, viruses parasitize …

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