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Re: H5N1 Turkey 2008
Speaking of "strange" acquisitions by the isolates in Turkey, the distribution of another change is listed here
This change was in a significant subset of the 2006 isolates and again presents a problem for "random mutations". The marker on the Turkey genetic background is a regional marker found in virtually all H5N1 isolates from Egypt. The markers in Egypt are in almost all H5N1 isolates and fall into two broad categories. One set is also found upstream (Europe primarily the Czech Republic and Ukraine) and downstream (H5N1 linked to Lagos, Nigeria). Another set is limited to Egypt (and adjacent countries, Israel and Djibouti).
One of the markers that goes upstream and downstream is in a large subset of the 2006 isolates in Turkey, indicating it was acquired after the two Turkey markers, which are in all Turkey isolates.
This acquisition is easily explained by recombination, because the marker had moved from Europe to Egypt to West Africa in the 2005/2006 season, so dual infections in Turkey in 2006 wouldn't be a surprise.
However, random mutation require that the very small number of changes on the isolates from Turkey coincidentally matched an H5N1 regional marker that was passing through the area in 2006.
These "coincidences" are cited again and again, and get very old very fast, which is why "random mutations" can only survive in the absence of data (and analysis). This story stayed locked up at Genbank until today and represents yet another clear example of polymorphism appearing where expected if the driver is recombination because donor sequences and progeny are at the same place at the same time.
Originally posted by niman
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This change was in a significant subset of the 2006 isolates and again presents a problem for "random mutations". The marker on the Turkey genetic background is a regional marker found in virtually all H5N1 isolates from Egypt. The markers in Egypt are in almost all H5N1 isolates and fall into two broad categories. One set is also found upstream (Europe primarily the Czech Republic and Ukraine) and downstream (H5N1 linked to Lagos, Nigeria). Another set is limited to Egypt (and adjacent countries, Israel and Djibouti).
One of the markers that goes upstream and downstream is in a large subset of the 2006 isolates in Turkey, indicating it was acquired after the two Turkey markers, which are in all Turkey isolates.
This acquisition is easily explained by recombination, because the marker had moved from Europe to Egypt to West Africa in the 2005/2006 season, so dual infections in Turkey in 2006 wouldn't be a surprise.
However, random mutation require that the very small number of changes on the isolates from Turkey coincidentally matched an H5N1 regional marker that was passing through the area in 2006.
These "coincidences" are cited again and again, and get very old very fast, which is why "random mutations" can only survive in the absence of data (and analysis). This story stayed locked up at Genbank until today and represents yet another clear example of polymorphism appearing where expected if the driver is recombination because donor sequences and progeny are at the same place at the same time.
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