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by Jan Grabowski, TWINCORE – Zentrum für Experimentelle und Klinische Infektionsforschung The isomeric structure of itaconic acid. Credit: CC-BY F. Chen et al. The endogenous itaconic acid molecule has antiviral and anti-inflammatory effects, as recently demonstrated by researchers from TWINCORE. In collaboration with scientists from the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig and the Helmholtz Saarland Pharmaceutical Research Institute, they have now investigated the closely related substance citric acid. The result: Citraconic acid protects cells through its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It also inhibits the release of flu viruses from human cells. They published these results in the journal Natural Metabolism . “Itaconic acid has two isomers, natural relatives that differ only slightly in their chemical structure, mesaconic

A study of the herpes virus infecting chickens offers new insight into the potentially problematic interactions between vaccines made from live viruses and viruses that are meant to be thwarted. Reported in the journal Virulence, the study offers direct evidence that vaccines and viruses can infect the same cells in live animals and share the molecular tools that allow the virus to infect other animals – in this case, chickens. The study focused on Marek’s disease, a viral infection that is spread when a chicken inhales flakes of dead skin or feather tissue from an infected chicken. “We’ve been trying to understand how the virus spreads from one host to another,” said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign pathobiology professor Keith Jarosinski, who led the study. “Not only did we do it for the benefit of chickens in the poultry industry, but also because of a very similar mechanism used by the virus that causes chickenpox, where it enters through the respiratory tract and infects l