National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers discovered that influenza A viruses change shape to help them infect cells.
According to NIH’s press release about the study, the virus particles “become either spheres or larger filaments—to favor their ability to infect cells depending on environmental conditions.”
Study findings:
- Antibody presence affects virus shape.
- Environment, not the strain, influences a virus’s shape.
- 16 virus-cell combinations were analyzed and “resulted in predictable shape trends.”
These new findings could provide explanations for why certain people are infected longer, etc. The research is published in Nature Microbiology.
