Plotkin Joshua B, Dushoff Jonathan, Levin Simon A
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Apr 30;99(9):6263-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.082110799. Epub 2002 Apr 23.
Continual mutations to the hemagglutinin (HA) gene of influenza A virus generate novel antigenic strains that cause annual epidemics. Using a database of 560 viral RNA sequences, we study the structure and tempo of HA evolution over the past two decades. We detect a critical length scale, in amino acid space, at which HA sequences aggregate into clusters, or swarms. We investigate the spatio-temporal distribution of viral swarms and compare it to the time series of the influenza vaccines recommended by the World Health Organization. We introduce a method for predicting future dominant HA amino acid sequences and discuss its potential relevance to vaccine choice. We also investigate the relationship between cluster structure and the primary antibody-combining regions of the HA protein.
甲型流感病毒血凝素(HA)基因的持续突变产生了导致年度流行的新型抗原株。利用一个包含560个病毒RNA序列的数据库,我们研究了过去二十年中HA进化的结构和速度。我们在氨基酸空间中检测到一个临界长度尺度,在该尺度上HA序列聚集成簇或群。我们研究了病毒群的时空分布,并将其与世界卫生组织推荐的流感疫苗时间序列进行比较。我们介绍了一种预测未来主要HA氨基酸序列的方法,并讨论了其与疫苗选择的潜在相关性。我们还研究了簇结构与HA蛋白主要抗体结合区域之间的关系。