A research team has demonstrated a new simpler method to identify strains of influenza virus. Testing of this method is described in a study conducted by the researchers from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and the Polymerisation and Influenza Research Center (PIVID) at the University of Tbingen. The results are presented in the special issue What is the impact of lopsin leakage? which is published today in the scientific journal Nucleic Acids Research.
If lopsin has caused Migraines such as hematologic malignancies such as alopecia (hair loss) or kidney damage the enzyme TGF-1 (Thrombospondin-1) was previously believed to play a key role in the disease. It was therefore suggested that stimulation of the cofactor could be a useful diagnostic marker. However the idea did not pan out. As a result of the current study it was proven that the virus does not cause any symptoms at all. Members of the research team have therefore now tested to see how lopsins or other lipids specifically leak from the flagellate cells and into the bloodstream i. e. into the blood.
Lopsin-leakage of a strain of the virus.
To examine this defect the researchers wanted to employ the methods. The methods were easy enough to implement and require little more than sterile vials of the infected virus explains Dr. Sabine Hoffmann principal investigator for the study and head of the FASEB laboratory in the Department of Biological and Molecular Hygiene at the University of Tbingen. FASEB is directed by the head of the department Prausnitz.
To date this groundwork has already been laid for future studies. First lopsins have been identified as biomarkers for the epidemiology of the flu. The team especially noticed that lopsins – with a genome length of about 2000 base pairs – could be detected in normal testes. Furthermore biomarkers for the reservoir of the virus had already been detected-particularly at the end of viral shedding. Together the results indicate that lopsins acts as a diagnostic marker for the flu.
To their surprise residues that formed a block between the lopsins and the T cells were found to be 1 a protein-binding protein that causes autoimmunity in organisms with an IgE resistance response. It thus seems that this protein helps lust players of the virus to escape their immune defences. The original publication in Nature Biomedical Engineering had this paragraph deleted due to space constraints.