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Abstract— Influenza A virus H1N1, a novel strain with high morbidity is the causative agent behind the recent outbreak of
swine influenza. Fifty one sequences of H1N1 influenza A viruses for the proteins-hemagglutinin and neuraminidase were taken
from GenBank. The sequences were aligned using ClustalW and BioEdit 7.0.2, both and the results were interpreted. The phy-
logenetic analysis was performed using MEGA 4. From the study conducted, the results suggested that the new influenza A vi-
rus strain H1N1 has a close phylogenetic relationship with the H1N1 viruses previously isolated from North America, Europe and
Asia.
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1 INTRODUCTION
caused substantial morbidity and mortality in humans,
Influenza virus belongs to the viral family of Orthomyx‐ from the time of its first outbreak in 1918 to the present
day. The genomic evolution of A/H1N1 has been demon‐
oviridae having segmented, negative single stranded,
strated to have been resulted from segmental reassort‐
sense RNA stranded genome in an enveloped virion and
ment. The influenza isolates from different host species
can be either spherical or filamentous in form. It can be on reassortment can generate viruses with pandemic po‐
classified into type A, B or C on the basis of the function tential [4]. The novel H2N2 and H3N2 strains that caused
of its genetic material. The viral envelope is studded with global human pandemics in 1957 and 1968 respectively
two glycoproteins namely, hemagglutinin (HA) and neu‐ were generated from the reassortment between avian and
raminidase (NA) which are essential for the biological human influenza A viruses [5].
function of the virus. There are 16 known HA proteins Novel influenza A (H1N1) is a new flu virus of swine ori‐
and 9 known NA proteins which can be present in vari‐ gin that was first detected in Mexico and the United
ous combinations and creating several different subtypes States in March and April, 2009. This strain contains
[1]. genes from four different flu viruses: North American
The viruses undergo major evolutionary change by ac‐ swine influenza, North American avian influenza, human
quiring a new genome segment from another influenza influenza, and two swine influenza viruses typically
virus, effectively becoming a new subtype, by the process found in Asia and Europe [6]. Many of the genes in this
known as antigenic shift [2]. Animals such as pigs and new virus were very similar to influenza viruses that
birds serve as reservoirs of influenza viruses thus facilitat‐ usually occur in pigs in North America. However, this
ing viral evolution. Genetic reassortment can occur when new virus is very different from what normally circulates
a pig is simultaneously infected with different influenza A in North American pigs. The 2009 H1N1 swine influenza
viruses, such as human, swine, and avian strains. This strain appears to be a result of genetic reassortment. It has
process gives rise to new strains of influenza A. two genes from flu viruses that normally circulate in pigs
The first case of swine flu outbreak in humans dates in Europe and Asia and avian genes and human genes,
back to the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic [3]. The and is therefore known as quadruple reassortant virus.
Spanish flu is in 1918, Asian flu in 1957 and Hong Kong Herein, we undertook an analysis of evolutionary pat‐
flu in 1968–69. The influenza A virus H1N1 subtype has terns in A/H1N1 influenza A viruses, using 52 protein
sequences of Hemagglutinin and Neuraminidase sam‐
———————————————— pled between 2004 and 2009 and representing 17 different
Vijay Tripathi is with the Center of Bioinformatics, University of Allaha- places. As our focus is on revealing the extent of intra‐
bad, Allahabad, India. subtype reassortment within A/H1N1, we inferred phylo‐
genetic trees for HA and NA gene segment and deter‐
Shambhavi Shankrit is with the Department of Biotechnology and Bioin-
formatics, Dr. D. Y. University,Pune, India mined the extent and pattern of topological incongruence
among them.
Dwijendra Gupta is with the Center of Bioinformatics, University of Alla-
habad, Allahabad, India
JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 2, ISSUE 11, NOVEMBER 2010, ISSN 2151-9617
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a measure of the unpredictable nature of a set of possible
elements. The higher level of variation within the set,
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS higher the entropy.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The purpose of this study was to carry out the
phylogenetic analysis of the influenza A virus H1N1.
From the information gathered it can be concluded that
the influenza A virus H1N1 is closely related to the strains
that had been earlier isolated from North America,
Europe and Asia.
5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The work has been supported by DBT‐BIF Grant to DKG
under its BTISNet scheme, Department of Biotechnology,
Fig. 1. Bootstrap Consensus Tree for HA India. VT is thankful to UGC‐India Scholarship.
In case of NA, the tree (Fig. 2) showed a completely REFERENCES
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