Influenza virus causes an acute febrile respiratory disease in humans that is commonly known as ‘flu’. Influenza virus has been around for centuries and is one of the most successful, and consequently most studied human viruses. This has generated tremendous amount of data and information, thus it is pertinent to summarise these for, particularly interdisciplinary readers. Viruses are acellular organisms and exist at the interface of living and non-living. Due to this unique characteristic, viruses require another organism, i.e. host to survive. Viruses multiply inside the host cell and are obligate intracellular pathogens, because their relationship with the host is almost always harmful to host. In mammalian cells, the life cycle of a virus, including influenza is divided into five main steps: attachment, entry, synthesis, assembly and release. To complete these steps, some viruses, e.g. influenza utilise all three parts — plasma membrane, cytoplasm and nucleus, of the cell; whereas others, e.g. SARS-CoV-2 utilise only plasma membrane and cytoplasm. Hence, viruses interact with numerous host factors to complete their life cycle, and these interactions are either exploitative or antagonistic in nature. The host factors involved in the life cycle of a virus could be divided in two broad categories — proviral and antiviral. This perspective has endeavoured to assimilate the information about the host factors which promote and suppress influenza virus infection. Furthermore, an insight into host factors that play a dual role during infection or contribute to influenza virus-host adaptation and disease severity has also been provided.
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December 2020
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The cover of this issue of Emerging Topics in Life Sciences: Emerging and re-emerging pathogens features a largely Malagasy bat virus research team, elaborating on the zoonotic potential of these bat-borne coronaviruses. Read more about the zoonotic potential of bat-borne coronaviruses in the review by Ravelomanantsoa et al. on pages 353–369 of this issue. (Image was taken by Samantha Kreling in Maritsophy, Madagascar on 2 October, 2019)
Perspective|
November 19 2020
Host factors involved in influenza virus infection
Matloob Husain
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
Correspondence: Matloob Husain (matloob.husain@otago.ac.nz)
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Publisher: Portland Press Ltd
Received:
September 15 2020
Revision Received:
October 14 2020
Accepted:
October 30 2020
Online ISSN: 2397-8562
Print ISSN: 2397-8554
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Portland Press Limited on behalf of the Biochemical Society and the Royal Society of Biology
2020
Emerg Top Life Sci (2020) 4 (4): 401–410.
Article history
Received:
September 15 2020
Revision Received:
October 14 2020
Accepted:
October 30 2020
Citation
Matloob Husain; Host factors involved in influenza virus infection. Emerg Top Life Sci 11 December 2020; 4 (4): 401–410. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/ETLS20200232
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