Although H5N1 is usually associated with respiratory symptoms, infected cows lack these typical signs of the disease and develop necrotizing mastitis instead. Now researchers say they have figured out why.
Influenza viruses bind to glycans — receptor molecules on the surface of cells — to infect their hosts. According to an article from Science Advances, cells within cows' respiratory tract lack H5N1-compatible glycans. But compatible glycans are abundant within the cow's mammary gland. That explains why the virus appears to attack the mammary gland rather than the respiratory tract in cattle, according to Suresh Kuchipudi, one of the paper's authors and a professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health.
