美国马里兰州贝塞斯达的国家健康研究所（NIH）的下属机构－国家关节炎和骨骼肌皮疾病研究所（NIAMS）的科学家与夏洛茨维尔的弗吉尼亚大学的研究人员通力合作，成功描绘出迄今为止最为详细的感冒病毒分子结构图。
NIAMS 的Alasdair Steven博士领导的研究团队成功分辨出流感A病毒的季节性H3N2病毒株的5种不同粒子，并已绘出这5种粒子的分子分布图。这一突破不仅有助于鉴定恶性病毒株的特征，而且有助于深入认识抗体使病毒失活的作用机制以及病毒识别脆弱细胞并侵入其中引发感染的机制。
“流感病毒分子分布图的成功绘制使我们多了一把利器，让我们在对付可能面临的流感肆虐时更能从容应战” NIAMS主管Stephen I. Katz医学博士说道，“这项研究使我们刺探到了更多的‘敌情’”。
没有两个病毒粒子完全相同是流感病毒分子结构图绘制进程中的一颗绊脚石。这也是流感病毒与其他病毒的一个本质区别。拿脊髓灰质炎病毒来说，这一病毒每个粒子的包膜都一样，这就使得对这一病毒的结晶学研究成为可能。
此次结构图的绘制得益于电子束X线断层摄影术（ET）的利用。ET是一种新颖的三维成象技术，它与临床上熟知的电子计算机横断层扫描成象技术（CAT，CT）原理一致，不同的是它是在超微电子显微镜下完成。
Molecular anatomy of influenza virus detailed
Scientists at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville have succeeded in imaging, in unprecedented detail, the virus that causes influenza.
A team of researchers led by NIAMS' Alasdair Steven, Ph.D., working with a version of the seasonal H3N2 strain of influenza A virus, has been able to distinguish five different kinds of influenza virus particles in the same isolate (sample) and map the distribution of molecules in each of them. This breakthrough has the potential to identify particular features of highly virulent strains, and to provide insight into how antibodies inactivate the virus, and how viruses recognize susceptible cells and enter them in the act of infection.
"Being able to visualize influenza virus particles should boost our efforts to prepare for a possible pandemic flu attack," says NIAMS Director Stephen I. Katz, M.D., Ph.D. "This work will allow us to 'know our enemy' much better."
One of the difficulties that has hampered structural studies of influenza virus is that no two virus particles are the same. In this fundamental respect, it differs from other viruses; poliovirus, for example, has a coat that is identical in each virus particle, allowing it to be studied by crystallography.
The research team used electron tomography (ET) to make its discovery. ET is a novel, three-dimensional imaging method based on the same principle as the well-known clinical imaging technique called computerized axial tomography, but it is performed in an electron microscope on a microminiaturized scale.
Source : NIH/National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
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