Bird Flu - Chicken Surprise - The Diigo Meta page

• 03 Jun 07
  

  James Linzel
  • That’s why we’ve been so concerned about pigs. Ducks have the 2,3 linkages, humans have the 2,6 linkages, and pigs have both. So, in a pig, the duck virus could theoretically accustom itself to our receptors and burst throughout the human population.1586 Unfortunately for the human race, researchers recently discovered that chickens have human 2,6 receptors in their lungs as well.1587
  • Just a single point mutation may change a virus that binds duck 2,3 receptors to a virus that binds human 2,6 receptors.1594 The researchers who resurrected the 1918 virus found that the receptor binding site on the virus differed from the binding site of its presumed avian precursor by just one or two tiny amino acid substitutions, presumably all it needed to go human.

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