Project description:The “Spanish influenza” of 1918 claimed an unprecedented number of lives, yet the determinants of virulence for this virus are still not fully understood. Here, we used functional genomics and an in vitro human lung epithelial cell infection model to define the global host transcriptional response to the eight-gene 1918 virus. To better understand the role of the 1918 virus NS1 gene, we also evaluated the host response to fully reconstructed 1918 and reassortant 1918 virus containing the NS1 gene from A/Texas/36/91 (a seasonal isolate of human influenza virus).
Project description:The “Spanish influenza” of 1918 claimed an unprecedented number of lives, yet the determinants of virulence for this virus are still not fully understood. Here, we used functional genomics and an in vitro human lung epithelial cell infection model to define the global host transcriptional response to the eight-gene 1918 virus. To better understand the role of the 1918 virus NS1 gene, we evaluated the host response to A/Texas/36/91 (a seasonal isolate of human influenza virus) and a reassortant of A/Texas/36/91 containing the 1918 NS1 gene.
