Flu Viruses Spread with the Help of Your Soft Palate

How do flu viruses manage to spread? That's a good question. Now, scientists have found that the soft palate, which is the soft tissue at the back of the roof of your mouth, plays a key role in viruses' ability to travel through the air from one person to another.

In this latest study, the researchers examined the H1N1 flu strain, which caused a 2009 pandemic that killed more than 250,000 people. Previously, the researchers had shown that airborne transmissibility depends on whether a virus' hemagglutinin (HA) protein can bind to a specific type of receptor on the surface of human respiratory cells. Some flu viruses bind better to alpha 2-6 glycan receptors, which are found primarily in humans and other mammals, while other viruses are better adapted to alpha 2-3 glycan receptors, found predominantly in birds.

The 2009 strain, not surprising, was very good at binding to human alpha 2-6 receptor. In the new study, the researchers created four mutations in the HA molecule of this virus, which made it better suited to bind alpha 2-3 receptors instead of alpha 2-6. They then used it to infect ferrets.

The researchers believe that the mutated virus wouldn't spread. To their surprise, though, they found that it traveled through the air just as well as the original version of the virus.

"This is an experimental validation that gain of binding to the 2-6 glycan receptor is critical for aerosol transmission," said Ram Sasisekharan, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The researchers examined tissue from different parts of the respiratory tract and found that viruses with the genetic reversion were most abundant in the soft palate. This, in particular, shows that this portion plays a major role in virus transmission.

Currently, the scientists are trying to figure out how this occurs. The findings could tell them quite a bit more about disease transmission in the future.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.

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