A chink in flu’s armor
A protein's structure reveals a target for new drugs
If the avian flu virus were a dragon, scientists have found what would be its soft underbelly.
Flu viruses make a protein that enables the viruses to replicate, and a new study that reveals the nooks and crannies in this protein suggests means of blocking it — and thus of stopping the common and avian forms of the virus from reproducing and spreading.
Existing flu drugs often target parts of the flu virus that can readily mutate, so drug-resistant strains quickly emerge. But because the protein studied, a type of RNA polymerase, is crucial for the virus’s ability to replicate, the protein’s shape is virtually identical among many strains of flu virus and therefore not prone to mutation. So a drug targeting this protein should be resistant to resistance, and it could be effective against the common, seasonal flu as well as a deadly bird flu pandemic.
The hypothetical drug could also be free of major side effects, at least in principle, because the RNA polymerase is made by the virus and unrelated to human proteins.