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Calculated risk: a new single-nucleotide polymorphism linked to severe influenza disease

Nature Medicine volume 23, pages 911–912 (2017)Cite this article

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Clear links between human genes and susceptibility to influenza disease are scarce. A recent study uncovers a gene variant coupled to severe influenza, and shows how it hampers the expression of an antiviral gene that is key to immune cell survival.

IFITM3 is induced by interferons and is a strong candidate for genetic regulation of human influenza susceptibility because of its ability to inhibit influenza virus replication in vitro and to restrict influenza virus pathogenicity in mice. It also shapes adaptive immune responses to influenza by protecting memory CTL survival during secondary influenza virus challenge3. A SNP in the coding region of the IFITM3 gene (rs12252-C) was previously shown to increase influenza disease severity in some individuals4,5,6,7,8, but the underlying mechanism remains ambiguous.

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Figure 1: The rs34481144 allele regulates IFITM3 expression and influenza severity.

Debbie Maizels/Springer Nature

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Leading Advanced Projects for medical innovation (LEAP) from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED); and grant U19AI106772 (to Y.K.), provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, US National Institutes of Health. The authors thank S. Watson for editing the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathobiological Sciences, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

    Amie J Eisfeld & Yoshihiro Kawaoka

  2. Division of Virology, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Yoshihiro Kawaoka

  3. International Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Yoshihiro Kawaoka

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  1. Amie J Eisfeld
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  2. Yoshihiro Kawaoka
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Correspondence to Yoshihiro Kawaoka.

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Eisfeld, A., Kawaoka, Y. Calculated risk: a new single-nucleotide polymorphism linked to severe influenza disease. Nat Med 23, 911–912 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.4383

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