Peter Palese has written an excellent opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal on why swine flu is not that scary. His arguments may bring some comfort for those readers of virology blog who are worried about the impact of the new influenza H1N1 strain. Even if you are not ...

The second RNA segment of the influenza virus genome encodes two proteins, PB1 and PB1-F2.  The latter protein is believed to be an important determinant of virulence of influenza virus. Can we learn anything about the virulence of the new influenza virus H1N1 strains from a study of this protein? ...

figure 1 Let's resume our discussion of the influenza virus genome. Last time we established that there are eight negative-stranded RNAs within the influenza virion, each coding for one or two proteins. Now we'll consider how proteins are made from these RNAs. Figure 1 shows influenza RNA segment 2, which ...

Here are my answers to questions about the currently circulating influenza H1N1 strain (formerly swine flu) sent by readers of virology blog. A reader from Mexico shared the following numbers with virology blog, then asked a question about hog cholera. Q: There are 312 confirmed cases of swine virus here ...

Within the influenza A virion are eight segments of viral RNA. These molecules carry the all the information needed to make new influenza virus particles. These eight RNAs are shown schematically as olive green lines at the top of the illustration. RNAs are chains of four different nucleotides, A, C, ...