Nat commun: Rhinovirus can cause asthma. Scientists have found the culprit

June 24, 2018 / BIOON / - Vienna Medical University has developed a new method, which can be used to identify rhinovirus strains that cause asthma, i.e cold virus They have developed a chip to accurately find the rhinovirus strains that cause asthma events This will pave the way for the development of vaccines against these dangerous viruses Source: some rhinoviruses in Medical University of Vienna may cause more than 80% of asthma events Viral asthma is particularly dangerous in children, who are more likely to develop allergies and lung disease as a result At the same time, infection with these cold viruses is also fatal for patients with chronic lung disease The rhinovirus chip, developed by the Vienna Medical University, covers all the major viruses and can be used to detect the virus that causes asthma through simple blood tests, which have found the culprit for children's asthma The development of this chip mainly relies on the previous work of Professor Rudolf Valenta's group in the center of Pathology, infectious diseases and immunology of Vienna Medical University These studies found that the N-terminal peptide of the cold virus protein vp1n is a biomarker of all rhinoviruses "At least we now know which rhinovirus causes asthma." Katarzyna niespodziana, lead author of the study, said Accurate identification of rhinovirus causing asthma is the basis for the development of vaccine in the future The rhinovirus strain discovered will become the main target of a cold vaccine which is being developed now "Our work will focus on a vaccine that can fight all of these asthma causing viruses." Niespodziana said Reference: katarzyna niespodziana et al PredictA chip based high resolution diagnosis of rhinovirus induced wheel, nature communications (2018) Doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-04591-0