Influenza Virus Reassortment Is Enhanced by Semi-infectious Particles but Can Be Suppressed by Defective Interfering Particles.

ABSTRACT: A high particle to infectivity ratio is a feature common to many RNA viruses, with ~90-99% of particles unable to initiate a productive infection under low multiplicity conditions. A recent publication by Brooke et al. revealed that, for influenza A virus (IAV), a proportion of these seemingly non-infectious particles are in fact semi-infectious. Semi-infectious (SI) particles deliver an incomplete set of viral genes to the cell, and therefore cannot support a full cycle of replication unless complemented through co-infection. In addition to SI particles, IAV populations often contain defective-interfering (DI) particles, which actively interfere with production of infectious progeny. With the aim of understanding the significance to viral evolution of these incomplete particles, we tested

SUBMITTER: Fonville JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4595279 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature