你是否相当注意可还是无法避免患上流感，而你的一些朋友或同事却似乎从不得这种病？研究人员发现，是否容易得流感，关键是人体免疫系统产生何种反应，这种反应与基因有关。
研究人员找来17名身体健康的英国志愿者，给他们注射流感病毒，然后监测他们接下来5天的身体状况。
17个人中，9人患上流感，其余8人则完全没有出现流感症状。监测过程中，利用卫星成像技术，研究人员每8小时检测一次志愿者血液样本中的基因。
结果显示，那些染上流感的人，在流感症状显现的36小时之前，他们的某些特定基因就出现了急性炎症。病情越严重，这种所谓“基因信号”就体现得越明显。
未染上流感志愿者的血液检测结果则显示，他们可以激活一种完全不同的基因信号。
基因发出“抗压反应”信号
研究人员把这一基因信号称为“抗压力反应”，表示人体正积极与病毒作斗争。这种基因表达反映出人体免疫系统如何对抗病毒，使人避免染上疾病。
美国密歇根大学工程学院的艾尔弗雷德•海罗教授领导这项研究。他说：“我们研究了267份血液样本中超过2.2万个基因。没有哪项关于人体免疫反应的研究具有如此大的规模。”
研究人员在最新一期《科学公共图书馆遗传卷》发表报告说，这一发现为医生尽早检测到流感病毒、在病情恶化前采取有效措施提供了可能。
生物探索推荐英文论文摘要：
Temporal Dynamics of Host Molecular Responses Differentiate Symptomatic and Asymptomatic Influenza A Infection
Exposure to influenza viruses is necessary, but not sufficient, for healthy human hosts to develop symptomatic illness. The host response is an important determinant of disease progression. In order to delineate host molecular responses that differentiate symptomatic and asymptomatic Influenza A infection, we inoculated 17 healthy adults with live influenza (H3N2/Wisconsin) and examined changes in host peripheral blood gene expression at 16 timepoints over 132 hours. Here we present distinct transcriptional dynamics of host responses unique to asymptomatic and symptomatic infections. We show that symptomatic hosts invoke, simultaneously, multiple pattern recognition receptors-mediated antiviral and inflammatory responses that may relate to virus-induced oxidative stress. In contrast, asymptomatic subjects tightly regulate these responses and exhibit elevated expression of genes that function in antioxidant responses and cell-mediated responses. We reveal an ab initio molecular signature that strongly correlates to symptomatic clinical disease and biomarkers whose expression patterns best discriminate early from late phases of infection. Our results establish a temporal pattern of host molecular responses that differentiates symptomatic from asymptomatic infections and reveals an asymptomatic host-unique non-passive response signature, suggesting novel putative molecular targets for both prognostic assessment and ameliorative therapeutic intervention in seasonal and pandemic influenza.
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