Scientists isolate human gene able to fend off most bird flu viruses
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[June 29, 2023]
By Natalie Grover
LONDON (Reuters) - UK researchers have homed in on a human gene
implicated in thwarting most bird flu viruses from infecting people.
Bird flu chiefly spreads among wild birds such as ducks and gulls and
can also infect farmed birds and domestic poultry such as chickens,
turkeys and quails.
Although the viruses largely affect birds, they can spill into bird
predators, and in rare cases, humans typically in close contact with
infected birds.
A team of scientists from the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus
Research studied hundreds of genes normally expressed by human cells,
comparing the genes' behaviour during infection with either human
seasonal viruses or avian flu viruses.
They zeroed in on a gene called BTN3A3, expressed both in the upper and
the lower human respiratory tract. Nicknamed B-force by the researchers,
the gene was found to block the replication of most strains of bird flu
in human cells.
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However, the gene's antiviral activity failed to protect against
seasonal human flu viruses.
This gene is part of a broader defensive apparatus in the human immune
arsenal against bird viruses.
All the human influenza pandemics, including the 1918-19 global flu
pandemic, were caused by influenza viruses that were resistant to
BTN3A3, and therefore the gene appears to be a key factor in whether any
bird flu strain has human pandemic potential, the researchers said.
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![](../images/062923PIX/health41.jpg)
Ducks are seen in a field in Bourriot
Bergonce, southwestern France, January 7, 2017. REUTERS/Regis
Duvignau/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Jun/29/images/ads/current/fcs_funeral_lda_border_04029022.png) To be sure, viruses mutate all the
time, and this does not mean that bird flu viruses could not evolve
to escape the activity of BTN3A3.
Earlier this year, a new H5NI strain of bird flu that transmits
easily among wild birds explosively spread into new corners of the
globe, infecting and killing a variety of mammal species and raising
fears of a human pandemic. So far, only a handful of human cases
have been reported to the World Health Organization (WHO).
About 50% of H5N1 strains circulating globally so far in 2023 are
resistant to BTN3A3, said professor Massimo Palmarini, the
corresponding author of the study published in the science journal
Nature.
“This is the sort of thing which we should be paying particular
attention to as an elevated level of risk,” added Sam Wilson, a
co-senior author of the study.
(Reporting by Natalie Grover in London; Editing by Nancy Lapid and
Christina Fincher)
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