She loves some viruses cheating – it may be good for our health

Even viruses should deal with parasites in the form of spongy relatives – and this fraud may be more common and important than biologists. In influenza infections, the number of viruses may exceed its normal number in a third of cases, which limits the severity of infections.

Viruses force them to make copies of themselves. They often take advantage of the machines in the cells, but there are a few proteins cryptocurrency with a special virus genome.

However, mutations can delete viral genes for these main proteins, which leads to flawed viruses that can affect cells, but they cannot copy themselves – unless another full virus also affects the cell, providing lost viral proteins.

The cell will then cut copies of both viruses. In fact, it may lead to more copies of the incomplete or defective virus because it contains a shorter genome. It is the viral reward for not buying a bar in the pub, and it slows the infections, because the infected cells produce completely lower viruses.

The presence of these chest viruses, also known as defective overwhelming viruses, was established by 1970. Pear At the University of Columbia in Canada. “But there is this question: Does it also matter to nature?”

He and his colleagues went to answer this question. We know from previous studies that chest viruses are present in the wild, but not the extent of abundance. It is difficult to create this because it requires the sequence of many viruses in the affected individuals. Due to the risks of H5N1 bird flu, this type of sequence has now been done for other purposes by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and raw data is available freely.

Kurds say data includes influenza infections in dozens of different types. “You have ostriches, home cats, cows, poultry, water birds, prey birds.”

Based on the sequence of the US Department of Agriculture, his team’s initial estimates, which have not yet been published, indicate that cheating viruses are really abundant. “There is something like 1 in 3 of the injured individuals who have at least one viral cheating sequence, we appreciate that it is 50 percent or a higher relative abundance,” says Leeks. “What this means is, like a third of the time, if you have influenza, these non -functional viruses are the majority. It only exceeds the population.”

He says, “It is not surprising that they are there.” “It is surprising that they are in a crazy high abundance, and it is surprising that they are present in many different host species, and many different sub -species of influenza.”

Kurds say that there is evidence that the high abundance of chest viruses reduces the severity of the injury, so the test of their presence may help predict the severe disease.

Other groups explore whether cheating viruses can be used to treat infections. In fact, for HIV, initial human tests are conducted after that Successful results in monkeys.

“I do not design treatments, but the results that we have answers the questions you want to answer, in terms of their safety and benefit,” says Lex.

Rafael Sanjuan The University of Valencia in Spain says he cannot comment on the specific results until full results are available. But it can only apply to influenza, instead of viruses in general.

“Some viruses tend to produce more of these” cheaters “more than others.” “In particular, the influenza virus is believed to be prolific in this regard.”

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