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How viruses hijack part of your immune system and use it against you

An enzyme intended to prevent autoimmune disease can be hijacked and used by some viruses to avoid immune detection. That discovery from Mayo Clinic researchers and collaborators appears in PLOS Biology. There's also good news. The same team also defined how much viral genetic material is needed to reverse the process and instead activate the immune system against the virus.

This viral genetic material takes the form of RNA, the chemical cousin of DNA. RNA can be a single strand like a string or a complex structure called a double strand. Various human immune proteins recognize viral RNA because long stretches of double strands are present in the virus genetic material. Human cells create their own RNA to serve vital functions, which sometimes have short regions of double strands. If the immune system is activated by human double-stranded RNA, it would give rise to autoimmune disorders – when the immune system mistakenly attacks the body.

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