Apr. 9, 2010 A University of Alberta-led research team has
discovered an influenza detector gene that could potentially
prevent the transmission of the virus to humans. Katharine
Magor, a U of A associate professor of biology, has identified
the genetic detector that allows ducks to live, unharmed, as the
host of influenza. The duck's virus detector gene, called
retinoic acid inducible gene -- I, or RIG-I, enables a duck's
immune system to contain the virus, which typically spreads from
ducks to chickens, where it mutates and can evolve to be a human
threat like the H5N1 influenza virus. The first human H5N1 cases
were in Hong Kong in 1997. Eighteen people with close contact to
chickens became infected and six died. Magor's research shows
chickens do not have a RIG-I gene. A healthy chicken can die
within 18 hours after infection, but researchers have
successfully transferred the RIG-I gene from ducks to chicken
cells. The chicken's defenses against influenza were augmented
and RIG-I reduced viral replication