Researchers find mechanism behind susceptibility to viral infections

A team of researchers at the Virus Research and Experimental Medicine Research Center (ViREMiCS), SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medicine Center, has found that immune cells that are under stress and altered metabolism are the reasons why some people get sick from illness. Viral infections, other no. to the same virus.

The results, published in the highest medical journal Nature Medicine, have important implications for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases caused by flaviviral infections such as dengue fever, conbad Zika syndrome and yellow fever. Flavivirus infections, a family of viral infections transmitted by mosquitoes and ticks, are a major health problem because they spread rapidly and lack authorized treatments.

Most viral infections have a series of consequences, even when people are infected with the same amount of virus in their blood. For example, nearly two-thirds of all dengue virus infections cause no symptoms, while the remaining third develop dengue fever, and even less progression to severe dengue fever. Understanding why this happens could lead to new ways to prevent the disease and reduce the burden of certain viral diseases.

"We tried to find out why some people did not get sick while they were infected with the same virus, while others developed symptoms and infections." Understanding the molecular events that lead to the development of new infections. symptoms could lead to new methods of preventing and treating infectious diseases around the world, "said Professor Ooi Eng Eong, Deputy Director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases (DIP) Program at Duke-NUS School of Medicine and a professor at SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute. Professor Ooi is also co-director of ViREMiCS, professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology of the National University of Singapore and the corresponding author of this study.

The team has conducted two clinical trials involving more than 100 healthy adults using the Yellow Fever Vaccine, one of the most effective vaccines in the world and has an excellent patient profile. ; safety. The team badyzed blood profiles of volunteers immediately before and after vaccination and found that individuals whose blood cells showed increased levels of stress due to protein production and altered metabolism before vaccination developed pseudo symptoms. – influenza after vaccination. Increased stress and altered metabolism resulted in earlier than expected activation of the immune response related to symptom development.

Our results show that increasing stress levels and altering the metabolism of an individual's immune cells are factors that promote the onset of symptoms during an infection. As a result, this indicates that immune cells and metabolic pathways may be useful targets for developing treatments for yellow fever or other flaviviral infections. "

Associate Professor Jenny Low, Senior Consultant, Department of Infectious Diseases, Singapore General Hospital and Co-Director of ViREMiCS

Dr. Low is also an badociate professor in the Duke-NUS electronic identification program and co-author of this study.

These results also imply that prevention of known conditions to subject cells to increased stress and altered metabolism, such as obesity, could prevent diseases due to viral infections.

The team is currently starting another clinical trial in 2020 to test whether suppressing the early immune response can reduce the risk of getting a viral infection.