I. Marazzi et al., “Suppression of the antiviral response by an influenza histone mimic,” Nature, 483:428-33, 2012.
Flu viruses employ an arsenal of tactics to bypass the immune system, and now Ivan Marazzi and colleagues at the Laboratory of Immune Cell Epigenetics and Signaling at Rockefeller University have discovered a new trick: a protein of the H3N2 flu strain carries a sequence that looks like a human histone tail and accumulates in the nuclei of infected cells, where it interferes with the transcription of antiviral genes.
The configuration of a portion of the viral protein NS1 in the human H3N2 strain looks similar enough to a region on the human histone protein that it can regulate the assembly of chromatin complexes. Crucially, the histone mimic targets antiviral host genes, and binds and impairs a protein that plays a key role in regulating transcription elongation.
“It’s been long established that viral ...
