摘要：

Membrane fusion is an essential element of enveloped viral infectivity. Efforts to understand the molecular details of this process have focused on specific lipid interactions and more recently on protein-lipid interactions 1 . Enveloped viruses like influenza, are internalized into endosomes where the low pH of this compartment catalyzes a conformational change in the hemagglutinin protein rendering it fusion competent 2 . Although the role of specific amino acid sequences at the amino terminal of the hemagglutinin have been implicated in this process 3 , the molecular details remain obscure.

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