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Characterising viable virus from air exhaled by H1N1 influenza-infected ferrets reveals the importance of haemagglutinin stability for airborne infectivity

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  • Characterising viable virus from air exhaled by H1N1 influenza-infected ferrets reveals the importance of haemagglutinin stability for airborne infectivity


    PLoS Pathog. 2020 Feb 25;16(2):e1008362. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1008362. [Epub ahead of print] Characterising viable virus from air exhaled by H1N1 influenza-infected ferrets reveals the importance of haemagglutinin stability for airborne infectivity.

    Singanayagam A1, Zhou J1, Elderfield RA1, Frise R1, Ashcroft J1, Galiano M2, Miah S2, Nicolaou L3, Barclay WS1.
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    Abstract

    The transmissibility and pandemic potential of influenza viruses depends on their ability to efficiently replicate and be released from an infected host, retain viability as they pass through the environment, and then initiate infection in the next host. There is a significant gap in knowledge about viral properties that enable survival of influenza viruses between hosts, due to a lack of experimental methods to reliably isolate viable virus from the air. Using a novel technique, we isolate and characterise infectious virus from droplets emitted by 2009 pandemic H1N1-infected ferrets. We demonstrate that infectious virus is predominantly released early after infection. A virus containing a mutation destabilising the haemagglutinin (HA) surface protein displayed reduced survival in air. Infectious virus recovered from droplets exhaled by ferrets inoculated with this virus contained mutations that conferred restabilisation of HA, indicating the importance of influenza HA stability for between-host survival. Using this unique approach can improve knowledge about the determinants and mechanisms of influenza transmissibility and ultimately could be applied to studies of airborne virus exhaled from infected people.


    PMID: 32097448 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1008362
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