• The avian influenza virus needs to mutate to cross the species barrier and to infect and replicate within mammalian cells. • The Cusack group from EMBL Grenoble has deciphered the structure of the avian influenza virus’s polymerase when it interacts with a human protein essential for the virus to replicate within the cell. • The structure of this replication complex, published in Nature Communications, provides important information about the mutations that avian influenza polym...| EurekAlert!
While cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) was first envisioned in 1968, the advances the Mahamid group are bringing to this 3D method for studying molecules directly inside cells are new, and are likely to greatly expand its use.| EMBL
A new publication from the Cusack group sheds light on how a key avian influenza virus enzyme can mutate to allow the virus to replicate in mammals.| EMBL