25 March 2012 Last updated at 13:00 ET By Eleanor Bradford BBC Scotland Health Correspondent

Scientists have discovered a gene which may make some people more susceptible to flu.

The gene was found by Edinburgh University researchers working with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge.

It may explain why apparently healthy people have needed intensive care after contracting swine flu, while others were unaware they had been infected.

The findings have been published in the journal Nature.

An analysis of the DNA of 60 patients in intensive care with flu revealed an unusually high number with a variant in a gene called IFITM3.

This gene produced a protein which hinders the spread of the flu virus in the lungs. The variant in this gene means less protein is produced and the flu virus can spread more easily.

Although the genetic variation is normally rare, it was 19-times more common than expected in people who needed hospital treatment.

Dr Kenneth Baillie, an expert in genetics and critical care at Edinburgh University's Roslin Institute, said: "During the pandemic it was very unusual for a healthy person to become desperately sick with flu but it did happen to some people.

"It was a mystery why it affected those people so severely when most people were hardly affected at all. This research explains a fraction of why those individuals were so susceptible."

Link:
Gene clue found for flu mystery

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