Guangming Daily: I study the bird flu virus breakthrough

Beijing, February 10 (Xinhua QI Fang) Chinese scientists completed the H5N1 strain of avian influenza virus RNA polymerase PA subunit of the structural biology work, clearly reveals the PA protein with endonuclease function. This discovery further reveals the avian influenza virus replication and infection mechanism for drug-related research and development provides a new level of fine structure of atomic platform. "Nature" magazine recently published online the results of research and specialized dispensing information.

The Study, commissioned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Biophysics刘迎芳group led by a researcher and academician饶子and Leaders of Nankai University, Tsinghua University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Joint Laboratory of Biophysics of the cooperation, and by the National Natural Science Foundation Committee, Ministry of Science and Technology and Chinese Academy of Sciences, support and funding.

According to introduction, the influenza viruses that contain eight genomic RNA segments of negative strand RNA viruses, are known to be 11 kinds of virus encoded proteins. Which, PB1, PB2 and PA, such as three protein subunits of influenza virus important life machine: influenza virus RNA polymerase. In the avian influenza virus replication and infection process, the influenza virus polymerase play a critical role, responsible for the exercise of virus genome RNA replication and virus mRNA transcription and other functions. Which, PB2 and PB1 function has been known for, but the PA in the complex has not had a clear function.

刘迎芳group and饶子and research team to resolve the H5N1 strain of avian influenza virus RNA polymerase PA subunit complex with the carboxy-terminal PB1 N-terminal peptide complex crystal structure, the results in August 2008 in "Nature" journal. They also analyzed the RNA polymerase PA subunit of the remaining N-terminal of the high-resolution crystal structure, and thus the basic completion of influenza virus polymerase PA subunit structural biology research.

The researchers found, PA protein has a functional endonuclease, the endonuclease activity will enable nucleic acid polymerase complex captured host cell mRNA by influenza virus polymerase endonuclease cutting, for the virus mRNA transcription. This activity is missing, will result in the virus should not transcribed in the cell mRNA. This conclusion is clearly the first time revealed the PA to participate in virus transcription, an important function of the molecular mechanism, but also the first demonstration of the bird flu virus in the RNA polymerase with the endonuclease function are in the PA subunit, but is likely to not reported in the past people on the PB1 subunit.