Friday, February 15, 2008 | Science : Medicine | print version

Virus immunity 'created in lab'

by BBC

Thanks to SPS for the link.

Reposted from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7240636.stm

Scientists have found a way to boost an organism's natural anti-virus defences - effectively making its cells immune to flu and other potential killers.

The process cannot be carried out in human cells - but it could potentially aid the development of effective new anti-viral therapies.

It works by stimulating production of the protein interferon, the cell's first line of defence against viruses.

The study, led by Canada's McGill University, appears in Nature.

The varying forms of the flu virus have killed millions of people down the years, and scientists are concerned that the H5N1 strain of the virus, which currently is overwhelmingly a disease of birds, could mutate to pose a grave threat to human populations across the globe.

Other viruses, such as Sars, have also sparked global health alerts in recent years.

The researchers knocked out two key genes in mice that repress production of interferon.

Brakes off

With these genes out of action, the mouse cells produced much higher levels of interferon, which effectively blocked viruses from reproducing.

Tests on four viruses, including that responsible for flu, produced highly promising results.

Lead researcher Dr Nahum Sonenberg said: "People have been worried for years about potential new viral pandemics, such as avian influenzas.

"If we might now have the means to develop a new therapy to fight flu, the potential is huge."

Dr Mauro Costa-Mattioli, who also worked on the study, said: "In a sense, it is quite a simple story.

"When you get rid of the repressors, you are basically removing the brakes."

The researchers detected no abnormalities or negative side-effects resulting from enhanced interferon production in the mice.

They are optimistic that new drugs can be developed which target the same two key genes in humans.

Professor John Oxford, a virology expert at Queen Mary College School of Medicine, London, said the paper was impressive.

He said: "Boosting the innate immune system seems like a good idea - it has a huge practical application in theory."

But, citing the failed drug trials in North London two years ago which left several young men fighting for their lives, he added: "It could be a double-edged sword.

"You have to be jolly careful that you don't end up on Queer Street."

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1. Comment #127859 by HourglassMemory on February 15, 2008 at 4:55 pm

Flu?
Are you serious?
*smiles*

To me this sort of thing feels like those competitions on television, where the audience is shouting repetedly for the contestant as s/he tries construct some weird geometrical sculpture.

I'm one of those shouting "Go,go,go!"

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2. Comment #127899 by Mitchell Gilks on February 15, 2008 at 5:25 pm

Sweet! Viruse immunity! Wow! I gotta get me some of that!

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3. Comment #127916 by John Done on February 15, 2008 at 5:54 pm

Seriously? Immunity? I knew biotech would get us somewhere! My bet is, it'll take us many other places in the near future.

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4. Comment #127918 by rod-the-farmer on February 15, 2008 at 5:57 pm

"You have to be jolly careful that you don't end up on Queer Street."

Huh ?? This has to be a UK-unique comment. Anyone care to explain ?

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5. Comment #127928 by StephenP on February 15, 2008 at 6:21 pm

Analogous to "shit creek"

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6. Comment #127971 by Enlightenme.. on February 15, 2008 at 8:18 pm

3. Comment #127916 by John Done on February 15, 2008

Seriously? Immunity? I knew biotech would get us somewhere! My bet is, it'll take us many other places in the near future.

Yeh, like malcontents creating biovirus attacks and us paying for antivirus protection - don't get me wrong, I haven't suddenly gone all Luddite, in fact I'm quite a fan of Venter and hope he can make hydrocarbon-shitting microbes, but all the same I'm worried - it's my favoured answer to the Fermi paradox.

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7. Comment #128004 by 82abhilash on February 15, 2008 at 9:20 pm

Me wonder. If repressors where a bad thing, it would have been selected out by natural selection would it not? Maybe they are a good thing because most viruses are useful? Maybe we tend to notice only the few that make most of us sick.

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8. Comment #128030 by rex on February 15, 2008 at 10:17 pm

rod-the-farmer wrote:

Huh ?? This has to be a UK-unique comment. Anyone care to explain ?

"Queer Street" means "in debt or other difficulties".

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9. Comment #128045 by tybowen on February 15, 2008 at 11:02 pm

Me wonder. If repressors where a bad thing, it would have been selected out by natural selection would it not? Maybe they are a good thing because most viruses are useful? Maybe we tend to notice only the few that make most of us sick.

They were probably selected for because of the cost in energy associated with them. Fortunately the developed world has lifted most of the body's energy costs. And I can't think of any evidence of useful viruses (though my knowledge is limited I admit).

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10. Comment #128046 by jo5ef on February 15, 2008 at 11:15 pm

Good research, but this is a hell of a long way from market. The TGN1412 disaster has underlined the difficulty of tinkering with the immune system. Anyone here keen to sign up for phase one trials?

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11. Comment #128056 by octopus on February 16, 2008 at 1:45 am

I wonder about performance against cancer cells.

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12. Comment #128085 by Geoff on February 16, 2008 at 4:33 am

"Queer Street" means "in debt or other difficulties".

Correct. I believe there was originally a debtor's prison on that street (In London?)

Edit: Wrong again, it was a bankruptcy court!

http://www.coventgarden.uk.com/featureshistory/fh_streets.php?street=51&submit=Go&submitted=TRUE&p_id=features&c_id=street

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13. Comment #128090 by Enlightenme.. on February 16, 2008 at 5:11 am

"They were probably selected for because of the cost in energy associated with them. Fortunately the developed world has lifted most of the body's energy costs. And I can't think of any evidence of useful viruses (though my knowledge is limited I admit)."

Part of the view of life is that it is all evolved as parasite>symbiont>indistinguishable part of us - see; Mitochondria.
Another is that viruses in particular are a breakaway part of DNA that has found an easier vector than sperm/egg, and therefore no longer acting in our interest!

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14. Comment #128092 by Luthien on February 16, 2008 at 5:50 am

Yeh, like malcontents creating biovirus attacks and us paying for antivirus protection - don't get me wrong, I haven't suddenly gone all Luddite...

Ooh, someone's been reading too much "V for Vendetta"... :-P

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15. Comment #128093 by StephenP on February 16, 2008 at 6:16 am

Courtesy of www.phrases.org.uk

Meaning

An imaginary street where people in difficulty live.

Origin

This slang term was recorded in 1811 in an updated version of Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, entitled Lexicon Balatronicum: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence:

QUEER STREET. Wrong. Improper. Contrary to one's wish. It is queer street, a cant phrase, to signify that it is wrong or different to our wish.

The phrase is often associated with debtors, although not exclusively so. Queer Street may have been imaginary but it where it was imagined to be was certainly London. By 1821 the term had found its way into Pierce Egan's Real life in London:

"Limping Billy was also evidently in queer-street."

Of course, the phrase was coined long before the 1920s when 'queer' was first used as a synonym for 'homosexual'.

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16. Comment #128111 by sarah95 on February 16, 2008 at 8:02 am

(I'll start off by saying that yes, I know what the queer-street phrase means, thanks to other posters, but....)

We could end up with immune systems that are "queerer than we CAN suppose." ;)

Sorry, I had to say it.

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17. Comment #128122 by kev_s on February 16, 2008 at 8:51 am

Maybe its 'The Clink' that is being confused with 'Queer Street'?
http://www.hiddenlondon.com/clink.htm

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18. Comment #128132 by Enlightenme.. on February 16, 2008 at 9:30 am

"Ooh, someone's been reading too much "V for Vendetta"... :-P"

No I don't know that one, all I can find so far is a comic-book series about a UK '90's dystopia, I'll read the wiki and decide if I want to check it out.

No.. what I am re-reading is my '89 copy of Selfish Gene, where Richard points out that in the '76 version it was a more innocent time when he did not foresee the analogy of errors in digital transcription to DNA errors being realised in malicious ways by such malcontents.

edit; Ooh, I've just found out the film has Stephen Fry, John Hurt and Natalie Portman in, so I shall check that out.

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19. Comment #128319 by Nails on February 16, 2008 at 6:34 pm

I'm sure there as been a wave of euphoria over B-interferon before and the fight against cancer that suddeny went quiet in the late 80's/early 90's.........

If my memory serves me right (so please feel free to correct me, I'm not a practicing biochemist) then interferon doses given to cells provide short-term immunity to viral infection.
The immunity is virtually 100% as well, but the cells themselves do not function normally while 'innoculated' - specifically disrupting the translation of mRNA into tRNA.

I don't know if it effects the ribosomes or the RNA itself, I'll have to do a little digging.
Might be a large obstacle to overcome though!

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20. Comment #130033 by Goodwithwood on February 20, 2008 at 12:16 am

10 or more years ago I had a friend who contracted Hepatitis C. In my concern for her I researched this disease enough that I was telling the doctors about it. Hep-c was like a new Aids with out a cure. To make along story short my friend became one of the first people in the world to be cured with interferon. She's alive and healthy today, but I'm not sure weather the virus is gone from her or just dormant.

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