Page 323 - AWSAR 2.0

Peeping into the Dressing Room of Influenza: A Virus
Ms. Dhanya T. M. || 299
Ms. Oyahida Khatun*
Email: oyahidakhatun@gmail.com
Influenza virus is the prime mover of Influenza, an acute respiratory disease, commonly called ‘flu’. It is the cause of global mortality
and morbidity with seasonal epidemics and sporadic pandemics. The pandemic strain H1N1 resulted in so severe a flu that it infected around 22 million people around the world.
This enveloped virus belongs to the Orthomyxoviridae family and contains eight segmented negative sense single stranded RNAs. These vRNAs encode transcript for ten different proteins along with some strand-independent accessory proteins. HA (hemaglutinin) and NA (neuraminidase) are decorated on the surface of Influenza and major antigenic determinants. M2 is a multi- functional ion-channel, play a role in entry and exit, that is, assembly and budding of viruses.
Other proteins like PB1, PB2 and NP are ribo- nucleoproteins. They are mainly involved in replication and transcription of viruses. Non- structural proteins (NS1 and NS2) help to evade host immune system or trick the host immune system to hijack the machinery and use it for its own benefit.
After contacting a potential host, IAV start the infection process with the help of HA. It binds to a receptor called sialic acid present on host cell surface and get it cleaved by silidase activity of another protein, NA. These receptor binding results in endocytosis mediated entry into the host cell and, ultimately, trafficked to endosomes. In a favourable environment, M2 protein opens up the ion channel, acidifies the interior of virion and leads to the release of vRNAs into cytoplasm. For amplification of
* Ms. Oyahida Khatun, PhD Scholar from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, is pursuing her research on “Influenza Virus”. Her popular science story entitled “Peeping into the Dressing Room of Influenza: A Virus” has been selected for AWSAR Award.