Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Cluster Analysis: A Preliminary Assessment

Charles Wick,Patrick Mccubbin,Samir Deshpande,Rabih Jabbour,Alan Zulich,Michael Stanford,Evan Skowronski

doi:10.1038/npre.2009.3773.1

Abstract

AbstractPandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus has been causing major concerns around the world because of its epidemic potential, rapid dissemination, rate of mutations, and the number of fatalities. One way to gain an advantage over this virus is to use existing rapid bioinformatics tools to examine easily and inexpensively generated genetic sequencing data. We have used the protein sequences deposited with the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) for data mining to study the relationship among the Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 proteins. There are 11 proteins in the Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus, and analysis of sequences from 65 different locations around the globe has resulted in two major clusters. These clusters illustrate the Pandemic H1N1 2009 virus is already experiencing significant genetic drift and that rapid worldwide travel is affecting the distribution of genetically distinct isolates.

Highlights

The H1N1 strain of influenza is a single stranded RNA virus composed of a segmented genome originated from various influenza viruses [1]
This paper addresses the Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 protein sequences collected from National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) [11] as of 06/11/2009
Our results show that the there are significant clustering of Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 among the cases

Summary

Introduction

The H1N1 strain of influenza is a single stranded RNA virus composed of a segmented genome originated from various influenza viruses [1]. The Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 viruses differ in the origins of their genomic components from these previously circulating H1N1 strains and belong to the classic swine lineage, which is genetically related to the human H1N1 viruses responsible for the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic [5,6]. The first reported outbreak of the mutated subtype influenza virus, Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 occurred in Mexico in April 2009 and was rapidly followed by more cases reported in the United States and many other countries.

Results

Conclusion