Re: Homologous Recombination is Very Rare or Absent in Human Influenza A Virus
I have to go through this paper in more detail, but it appears to have set up a number of hoops that have been raised high, and ignores the jumping through lower hoops.
The paper really focuses on "obvious" recombination and then throws out examples at the ends of the genes and is left with two examples, which have identity with earlier isolates. These are considered to be lab artifacts because the sequences are conserved over a long time period.
The paper acknowledges the possibility of short regions of recombination, which would be missed by the analysis method used (and therefore doesn't address obvious recombination between H1N1 and H3N2 internal genes).
The paper also does not address multiple recombination events over time, which would split recombined regions, as was demonstrated in the swine Nature Precedings paper, which the authors deem as "controversial".
The paper does address the obvious examples of recombination in the swine sequences, which would be difficult to explain by lab error, because it would require multiple contaminants (two 1977 Tennessee swine, one 1997 North Carolina Swine, one 2002 Korean swine, and 1 1931 Iowa swine), just to explain the recombination in PB2 and PA.
There are some obvious examples of recombination in a series of human south Korean HA sequences, which are also hard to explain by lab contamination. I am not sure why these sequences were not addressed, although the paper seems to focused more on explaining away data it doesn't like, or excluding clear examples for various reasons (I suspect exclusion is because the sequences are partial or full gene segments were not released).
I have to go through this paper in more detail, but it appears to have set up a number of hoops that have been raised high, and ignores the jumping through lower hoops.
The paper really focuses on "obvious" recombination and then throws out examples at the ends of the genes and is left with two examples, which have identity with earlier isolates. These are considered to be lab artifacts because the sequences are conserved over a long time period.
The paper acknowledges the possibility of short regions of recombination, which would be missed by the analysis method used (and therefore doesn't address obvious recombination between H1N1 and H3N2 internal genes).
The paper also does not address multiple recombination events over time, which would split recombined regions, as was demonstrated in the swine Nature Precedings paper, which the authors deem as "controversial".
The paper does address the obvious examples of recombination in the swine sequences, which would be difficult to explain by lab error, because it would require multiple contaminants (two 1977 Tennessee swine, one 1997 North Carolina Swine, one 2002 Korean swine, and 1 1931 Iowa swine), just to explain the recombination in PB2 and PA.
There are some obvious examples of recombination in a series of human south Korean HA sequences, which are also hard to explain by lab contamination. I am not sure why these sequences were not addressed, although the paper seems to focused more on explaining away data it doesn't like, or excluding clear examples for various reasons (I suspect exclusion is because the sequences are partial or full gene segments were not released).
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