EMBL researchers map exactly how the flu virus hijacks human cells
Researchers at EMBL Hamburg and Charite Berlin have mapped how influenza A hijacks human cells in unprecedented detail, using a specialized imaging technique combined with AlphaFold modeling. The virus dissolves nuclear compartments called paraspeckles to fuel its own replication
Seasonal influenza kills up to 650,000 people worldwide each year and causes serious illness in three to five million more, yet exactly how the virus rewires human cells at the molecular level has stayed only partly understood. Researchers at EMBL Hamburg, the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology, and Charite Berlin have now mapped that process in unprecedented detail using a modified cross-linking mass spectrometry technique combined with AlphaFold structural modeling. The study, published in Nature Microbiology, identifies two mechanisms: the virus hijacks the cell's protein transport network to fold its surface protein haemagglutinin, and it causes paraspeckles, small compartments inside the cell nucleus, to dissolve and release RNA-binding proteins the virus reuses to replicate. This held true across every cell line and flu strain tested. The researchers say the same approach can now be applied to viruses with pandemic potential, including H5N1.