Virologists at the University of Glasgow were able to observe for the first time how two respiratory pathogens formed a hybrid to bypass the human immune system and infect lung cells. The researchers’ work was published in the journal Nature Microbiology.
The researchers monitored influenza type A virus and human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). They cause some of the most common respiratory diseases, affecting the lower respiratory tract.
According to scientists, the joint infection of a person with two pathogens is now widespread. Previously, scientists believed that a stronger virus kills a weaker one, but now they have found a different effect.
The researchers decided to study how the listed viruses would behave when they were in the same cell. To do this, the team infected human lung cells with both viruses and found that they “merged” to form a palm-shaped hybrid virus.
RSV became the “trunk” of this “palm tree”, and the “leaves” became the influenza virus.
“Such hybrid viruses have never been described before. Viruses from two completely different families have formed a new type of pathogen. The new virus was able to bypass the immune system and infect healthy cells, despite the presence of antibodies to the flu. The antibodies clung to the influenza virus proteins on the surface, but it simply used the free proteins from the RAV to infect the cells. The influenza virus used hybrid virus particles as a Trojan horse,” the scientists explained.
In future studies, scientists plan to prove that hybrid viruses can appear in the body of patients infected with two infections at once, and to test which pairs of viruses are capable of doing so.
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