A fascinating paper from 2022 shows - with caveats - that individual cells can be coinfected by influenza A virus (IAV) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and, the interesting bit, can produce hybrid viral particles that contain both genomes and a mix of structural proteins. - ThreadSky

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mackayim.bsky.social • 21 days ago

A fascinating paper from 2022 shows - with caveats - that individual cells can be coinfected by influenza A virus (IAV) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and, the interesting bit, can produce hybrid viral particles that contain both genomes and a mix of structural proteins.

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mackayim.bsky.social•21 days ago

... that can then infect new cells and replicate each virus, even if the receptor for IAV is absent in the new cells. Now, that's worthy of the "frankenvirus" title, if anything is.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-022-01242-5

mackayim.bsky.social•21 days ago

The authors note that this is a chance occurrence relying on overlapping seasonality, a shared affinity for ciliated epithelial cells, the fact that both viruses bud new virions from the apical cellular surface, and the fact that both viruses initially infect the same cell.

mackayim.bsky.social•21 days ago

Also, this is all done outside the body in lab cells, so more work is needed to see if it occurs in us in the presence of an immune system (I think it will, but how frequently needs evidence).
More virus pairings need testing to see if others can be co-packaged.

mackayim.bsky.social•21 days ago

Do these hybrid viruses gain access to tissues that would otherwise be out of bounds to one of the viruses alone because the required receptor binder, now provided by the coinfecting partner, is absent?
And does this make any difference to disease?

mackayim.bsky.social•21 days ago

The authors suggest it may allow IAV into lower respiratory tract tissues, leading to pneumonia, facilitated by RSV acting as its Uber driver.
This also offers yet another way to explain the variability in disease outcomes among different people after infection.
There are sooo many variables!

melodyschreiber.com•21 days ago

Viruses are so fascinating

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