The origin of the virus (finally) revealed?

orange with 6 media, Posted on Sunday, Apr 09, 2023 at 8:45 pm

On the occasion of the discovery of a strain of influenza virus in the intestines of sturgeon, France News Talk to the editor-in-chief of the magazine epsilon to decode this information.

It’s a virus that comes back every year to bother us. But, as stated France NewsSunday April 9, Australian biologists were able to pinpoint the origin of influenza…in the gut of sturgeon.

They found the trace of the virus’s ancestor thanks to genetic sequencing. More specifically, this information indicates that before colonizing the terrestrial environment, influenza infected aquatic animals. To better understand these research findings, the media spoke with Mathilde Fontez, editor-in-chief of the journal epsilon.

Sophisticated story

It is an American virologist, based at the University of Sydney (Australia), Mary Petrone, who was the originator of this discovery. “I found in sturgeon a virus of the same family as influenza, but in ancestral form, a distant relative of seasonal influenza, the one that infects us every winter.Mathilde Fontes L. explains France News. clearly,”So this virus could have been born in the fishEditor-in-Chief of the magazine epsilon. For now, it would be premature to proceed with an exact genealogy of this relationship because “researchers only have pieces of the tree, disparate elements.” However, the virus has already been observed in Siberian sturgeon, in corals or in hagfish, a family of aquatic animals closely related to snakes.

“And by comparing the genetic sequences of all these viruses, we begin to chart a path, an evolutionary history, that would have begun in the water, 600 million years ago, even before the first fish appeared.“The virus then moved into the terrestrial environment, creating its share of concerns.”This return to origins can make it possible to better understand this transmissionMathilde Fontez concludes FCorrupt information.