Some species are susceptible to broad range of viruses: Study

A study on fruit flies revealed that certain species are extremely vulnerable to a variety of viruses. In the study - by the University of Exeter - 35 fruit fly species were exposed to 11 different viruses of diverse types.

As expected, fly species that were less affected by a certain virus also tended to respond well to related viruses. But the findings also show "positive correlations in susceptibility" to viruses in general. In other words, fly species that were resistant to one virus were generally resistant to others - including very different types of virus.

"Large-scale tests like this help us understand how pathogens shift to new host species, with findings broadly applicable to other animals - including humans," said Dr Ryan Imrie, now at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research.