Intracellular transport of the internal virion components of influenza A virus to the assembly site

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Silke Stertz
• Subject Area: Virology
• Term: from 2008 to 2010
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 57669509

Influenza A virus is the causative agent of a febrile respiratory disease in humans. Although the viral replication cycle within host cells has been studied in great detail, there are still several parts which are not well characterized: After viral transcription and replication in the host cell nucleus, the viral components needed for assembly of new particles have to be transported to the assembly site at the plasma membrane. The export of viral proteins from the nucleus has been studied extensively. However, only very little is known about the subsequent transport through the cytoplasm. The first goal of my project therefore is to characterize the pathway used by the inner virion components to reach the final assembly site. The second part of my project aims to identify the unknown cellular interaction partners involved in these transport processes. The binding domains on the viral proteins will be characterized and the generation of respective mutant viruses will reveal the importance of the cellular interaction partners for cytoplasmic transport to the assembly site. These studies may improve our understanding of the interplay between influenza A virus and the host cell, a prerequisite to developing new antiviral drugs.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Dr. Peter Palese