Washington- Influenza virus coats itself with a fatty substance, which gets hard and protects the virus in colder temperatures and this coating melts in the respiratory tract. This allows the virus to infect the cells, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

The researchers from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) found out that influenza viruses coat themselves with a fatty protein namely hemagglutinin. This coat hardens and protects them at low temperatures. The researchers used a kind of imaging known as nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (NMRI) to examine the outer cover of the flu viruses.

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Joshua Zimmerberg of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) said, “The protective coat melts in the respiratory tract, like an M&M in your mouth”.

“Only in this liquid stage, the virus is capable of entering and infecting a cell”, said Joshua Zimmerberg, who led the study, published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology. The researchers believe that this finding could explain why winter is flu season.

Scientists have long wondered about why flu and various other respiratory viruses spread more in the winter. Explanations like people staying indoors more, or the destructive effect of the sun’s rays in summer, have not completely explained it.

“The new report could help to find new ways for preventing and treating flu”, said Duane Alexander, Director of NICHD.

“The findings open new paths of research for thwarting winter flu outburst,” – said Alexander. “Now as we know how the influenza virus protects itself so that it can spread from one person to another, we can find out ways to hinder that protective mechanism”, he added.

The researchers say that viruses cannot replicate on their own, they capture a living cell by fusing the outer coat with the victim cell. Then they inject genetic material into the cell and form a virus factory.

Some viruses just explode out of the hijacked cells, while influenza viruses “bud” out. They use lipids like cholesterol from the cells to make the membrane that facilitates the process.

hemagglutinin is a liquid inside a warm cell, but at cooler temperatures it starts a process that resembles crystallization known as ordering. It solidifies gradually from 40?C to 4?C.

“I think that this gradualness allows it to stay alive at every temperature”, Zimmerman said. The protective coat melts in warmer outdoor temperatures and the virus would die unless it is inside a living animal or person.

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