Reacción a "Reactions: a protein is identified that prevents transmission and replication of avian influenza viruses in humans"

Avian influenza is currently a serious animal health problem. Understanding the virus evasion mechanisms and the evolution of proteins involved in evading the immune response is of vital importance, as this provides a tool with great potential to assess the impact of the different bird-to-human virus transmissions that we have been analysing worldwide. 

The identification of mutations allows us to assess the origin of the virus detected in humans and to understand the impact these changes may have on the population. The rapid and reliable collection of genomic data has now provided great advantages for influenza virus surveillance. Having information on mutations to monitor, even if we then have to verify their actual impact by functional and antigenic assays, is a great advantage that allows us to make rapid and informed decisions. 

On the other hand, a better understanding of the innate immune response to respiratory viruses is crucial, as this will give us one of the keys to understanding the development and evolution of respiratory infections. In the case of human influenza, some interferon evasion pathways are well characterised. In respiratory infections, the innate immune response plays a key role: if inadequately activated, viral replication can lead to the development of disease, but over-activation can lead to tissue damage that aggravates the disease. A better understanding of all these multiple pathways and the interactions between them is an important field with great potential. 

The authors of this paper have presented functional and genomic data that are robustly supported by appropriate methodology. The use of different assays provides rigorous support for the results presented.