Flu question

[Henry Putz]

BIE034 at news.salford.ac.uk wrote:
>
> I was recently reading a book on protein structure and was intrigued by the 
> influenza haemaglutinin protein. The book remarked that on the lowering 
> of the pH whilst inside the endocytotic vesicle the viral protein undergoes a 
> considerable structural change to fuse the viral membrane to that of the 
> vesicle. The book was several years old but I would assume that such a change 
> would be an ideal target for drug interactions and so should have a large 
> body of associated research. Could anyone tell me if there has been any 
> progress in determining the mechanism by which the change occurs? If so I 
> would appreciate any pertinent references which they may know!
> 
> 		I thank everyone for their help
> 		Simon.

Simon,

Another useful review regarding the influenza HA protein would be:
Gaudin, Y. et al, Low pH induced conformational changes in viral
fusion proteins: implications for the fusion mechanism, J. Gen.
Virology, 1995, 1541-1556.

Henry Putz
Dept. of Virology
Bristol-Myers Squibb