My Genes were Hijacked – That’s how I got this cold!

The HRV virus that causes colds is now considered a hijacker, sounds just like computer lingo, except there’s no anti virus software to take care of the nose. Now I can diagnose my self as being hijacked in the nasal cavity. The research found here states that it will also be of help with developing treatments for asthma and COPD. It certainly would be nice though to be able to have a vaccine that could eliminate colds too. BD

Sneezing, runny nose and chills? You might blame the human rhinovirus (HRV), which causes 30 to 50 percent of common colds. But in reality, it's not the virus itself but HRV's ability to manipulate your genes that is the true cause of some of the most annoying cold symptoms. For the first time, researchers have shown that HRV hijacks many of your genes and causes an overblown immune response that ends up with your nose being overblown.

This is the first comprehensive picture to identify several groups of genes that are likely to contribute to the pro-inflammatory and antiviral response," said Dr. Proud. The researchers also found that viral titer more than doubled in cells that had had the viperin-producing gene "knocked down," showing that HRV replication was hampered by viperin. "This had never been examined during rhinovirus infections," said Dr. Proud. "Some evidence existed that this protein (only discovered a few years ago) had effects on influenza, but nothing was known about its role in rhinovirus infections.

So it was a bit unexpected."
"Overall these data provide new insights into the host response to HRV infection and identify several novel candidate genes that require further study to clarify their role in disease pathogenesis," said Dr. Proud. "This may identify proinflammatory, or host defense pathways that could be targeted for drug development, not only as treatments for colds but also for viral exacerbations of asthma and COPD. The fact that genes associated with structural 'remodeling' or the airways were also altered, supports further study of the role of rhinovirus infections in airway remodeling in asthma."