• FluTrackers.com Inc. does not provide medical advice. Information on this web site is collected from various internet resources, and the FluTrackers board of directors makes no warranty to the safety, efficacy, correctness or completeness of the information posted on this site by any author or poster. The information collated here is for instructional and/or discussion purposes only and is NOT intended to diagnose or treat any disease, illness, or other medical condition. Every individual reader or poster should seek advice from their personal physician/healthcare practitioner before considering or using any interventions that are discussed on this website. By continuing to access this website you agree to consult your personal physican before using any interventions posted on this website, and you agree to hold harmless FluTrackers.com Inc., the board of directors, the members, and all authors and posters for any effects from use of any medication, supplement, vitamin or other substance, device, intervention, etc. mentioned in posts on this website, or other internet venues referenced in posts on this website.
  • We are not asking for any donations. Do not donate to any entity who says they are raising funds for us.

Reassortment Complements Spontaneous Mutation in Influenza A Virus NP and M1 genes to Accelerate Adaptation to a New Host

tetano

Editor, Senior Moderator
J Virol. 2013 Jan 30. [Epub ahead of print]
Reassortment Complements Spontaneous Mutation in Influenza A Virus NP and M1 genes to Accelerate Adaptation to a New Host.
Ince WL, Mbaye A, Bennink JR, Yewdell JW.
Source

Laboratory of Viral Diseases, National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, MD 20892.
Abstract

Influenza A virus (IAV) infects a remarkably wide variety of avian and mammalian hosts. Evolution finely hones IAV genes to optimally infect and transmit in a particular host species. Sporadically, IAV manages to jump between species, introducing novel antigenic strains into the new host population that wreak havoc until herd immunity develops. IAV adaptation to new hosts typically involves reassortment of IAV gene segments from co-infecting virus strains adapted to different hosts in conjunction with multiple adaptive mutations in the various IAV genes. To better understand host adaptation between mammalian species in real time, we passaged mouse-adapted A/PR8/34 (PR8) in guinea pigs. Guinea pigs, unlike mice, support spontaneous and robust IAV transmission. For some IAV strains, including PR8, adaptation is required for a virus to attain transmissibility, providing an opportunity to understand the evolution of transmissibility in guinea pigs. Multiple guinea pig-adapted PR8 mutants generated by serial nasal wash passaging in independent lines replicated more efficiently and transmitted by co-caging. All transmissible variants possessed one of two non-synonymous mutations in M1, either alone or in combination with mutations in PB2, HA, NP or NA. Rapid reassortment between independently selected variants combined beneficial mutations in NP and M1 to form the fittest transmitting virus. These findings provide further insight into genetic determinants in NP and M1 involved in PR8 IAV adaptation to transmit in a new host, and clearly show the benefit of a segmented genome in rapidly generating optimal combinations of mutations in IAV evolution.

PMID:
23365443
[PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23365443
 
Back
Top