The Consortium for Functional Glycomics has developed a technique for detecting changes in flu viruses that could serve as an early warning system for detecting deadly flu strains.

In a study published in the Journal of Molecular Biology, scientists compared a number of human and avian H1 and H3 viruses, including the 1918 H1N1 pandemic strains based on the variations in their hemagglutinins, which are the surface proteins responsible for host specificity. The resulting glycan array provided highly detailed profiles of influenza receptor specificity that can be used to monitor the emergence of flu strains that efficiently infect humans, including bird flu.

Source and Photo: NIGMS